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W. W. CAP1S 



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Glass. 



Book 



THE EDWIN C. DINWIDDIE 

COLLECTION OF BOOKS ON 

TEMPERANCE AND ALLIED SUBJECTS 

(PRESENTED BY MRS. DINWIDDIE) 



■Ht E. C DIN WIDDIEi** 

SPRINGFIELD, OHIO. 



Classical ftHritas. 

Edited by JOHN RICHARD GREEN. 



LIVY 



^> 



BY 



W. W. CAPES, M. A., 

FELLOW OF HERTFORD COLLEGE 

AND 

READER IN ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 




NEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

i, 3, and 5 BOND STREET. 

1880. 



^v 






Gift 
Edwin O. Dinwiddi#, 
Deo. 33, 1936 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

PAGE. 
LIVY AS A LITERARY MAX AT ROME .... 3 

CHAPTER II. 

A GENERAL ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 12 

CHAPTER III. 

THE AGE OF THE KINGS ...... 26 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH TO THE DESTRUCTION 
t\, OF ROME BY THE GAULS 34 



W 
*? 



M 



CHAPTER V. 

FROM THE INVASION OF THE GAULS TO THE END 

OF THE SAMNITE WARS 49 

CHAPTER. VI. 

CRITICISM OF LIVY'S METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE , 65 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE LOST DECADE, WITH ITS ACCOUNTS OF PYRRHUS 

AND OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR . . -75 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR 79 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE FIRST WAR WITH MACEDONIA AND THE PRO- 
CLAMATION OF GREEK FREEDOM . . -99 

CHAPTER X. 

ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST AND POLICY IN GREECE 1 08 



LIVY. 



CHAPTER L 



LIVY AS A LITERARY MAN AT ROME. 



Rome as the Capital of the World. — Livy, like 
most of the great Latin authors, was not of Roman 
birth, but the native of a country town of Italy, 
attracted to Rome in later years. In our own days 
men of letters flock to London or to Paris, or to some 
other of the capitals of Europe, where they find the 
readiest market for their literary wares, or easiest 
access to the shifting currents of new thought. In 
Livy's time Rome was the capital of the whole civilised 
world, and as such the centre to which all eyes and 
all ambitions turned. For seven hundred years the 
city of the Seven Hills had fought and schemed and 
conquered ; it had cost her centuries of constant war- 
fare to spread her arms through Italy; she had been 
locked with Carthage in a struggle for life or death 
which, three times renewed, was ended only by the 
total ruin of the Queen of Trade ; Macedonia, rely- 
ing on the proud memories of Alexander's conquests, 
dared her to a trial of strength, but only to be crushed, 
dismembered, and annexed ; the royal thrones of Asia 
toppled and fell before the tramp of the invading 
legions ; in the West the peoples of Spain and Gaul 
bowed their necks perforce to receive the yoke of 
Rome, which stood at last supreme in the old world 
in the solitude which she had made, with a ring of 
uncivilised races only on her border. The age of 
conquest was succeeded by a period of Civil Wars, 



4 UVY. [chap. 

in which the rival claimants for Imperial power dis- 
puted the prize which had been won. The com- 
manding genius of the great Caesar triumphed in the 
field only to fall before the assassins' knives. His 
nephew stepped into the vacant place, and played a 
warier game of force and guile, till he swept his rivals 
from his path, and the Augustan age at last gave peace 
to the world and prosperity to Rome. 

Livy left his native Padua. — New-comers flocked 
from every quarter to the seat of empire and of 
fashion; motley crowds jostled each other in the 
streets, for curious wonder and the spirit of adventure 
drew them by thousands from their homes. Thither 
came Livy like the rest. He left his native Padua, 
then called Patavium, and settled as a man of letters 
where he might find books and literary circles, or 
materials for wider studies. 

Livy as a literary man at Rome. — In public 
life indeed there was little opening for his special 
talents. The arts of peace had languished sadly 
during the long years of Civil War, when the soldier's 
trade alone was prized. Quiet and plenty were re- 
stored once more ; the temple of Janus had been 
closed — the symbol of universal peace which had been 
unknown for ages — but the old days had not come 
back when eloquence alone could raise the orator to 
the highest posts of honour. The Republic had 
passed away for ever. The mass-meetings of the 
streets, roused to fury by the hot words of a party- 
leader ; the passionate debates in the National Assem- 
blies, whose virulent invectives shock our calmer 
tastes; the Criminal Trials, in which the rival advocates 
were politicians straining every nerve to gain a party 
triumph — these were now memories of the past when 
the name of Freedom was often sullied by turbulent 
misrule. Power was now divided between the Em- 
peror and the Senate. The former was Commander- 
in-Chief of all the armies of the State, governing by 
his deputies the great countries, then called Provinces, 
which needed military force, and though in name 



I.] LIVY AS A LITERARY MAN AT ROME. 5 

only Supreme Magistrate, was really almost absolute 
Monarch. The latter was made 'up of ex-officials, 
who took their seats for life in the Great Council; 
through it the noble families of Rome seemed still 
to rule the capital and half the provinces; but the 
master of the armies held the power of the sword ; 
his will, disguised though it was by many a mask, was 
felt in every detail of public life, influenced the course 
of every debate, and determined the career of every 
statesman or aspirant. The arts of Rhetoric were 
studied as of old, and the young trained themselves in 
all the fence of words, but eloquence no longer pro- 
mised a career of usefulness or honour. Livy was not 
born, as we have seen, among the governing families 
of Rome, nor was he started early in official life, but, 
happily for us, his genius turned soon, if not at first, 
to literary labours, and found a fitting subject to fire 
his fancy and to occupy his life in following the 
history of Rome from the earliest ages down to his 
own days. It would have been hard indeed to find a 
worthier theme or a better time to handle it. 

He found a worthy subject. — It might well stir 
the imagination of the visitor to Rome to think that a 
quiet word spoken hard by in the palace would carry 
the weight of law throughout the civilised world : that 
in the strangers who elbowed him as he passed along 
the streets were men of almost every race and tongue : 
that the great highways which started from the central 
milestone in the city ran on to the furthest ends of 
the great Empire where the legions of Rome were 
stationed to keep watch and ward against the far-off 
races of barbarous names and unknown story, while 
all within enjoyed unwonted peace. In the very year, 
as it would seem, when Livy's history was begun the 
old era had been closed and the Empire had been 
born. But it was not the policy of Augustus rudely to 
disturb the associations of the past. Old formalities of 
office were observed ; the annual pageants of the 
Commonwealth passed along the streets ; old buildings 
full of earlier memories were carefully restored; the 



LIVY. [CHAP. 



name even of the Republic was retained. Outside the 
city along the highways ran the long line of funeral 
monuments on which many a tale might still be read 
of the generals and statesmen of a bygone age. Within 
in every square and market-place, wherever there were 
crowds to gather and curious eyes to look, were the 
unnumbered statues of the men who had added to 
the glories of their fatherland, and whose forms were 
still ranged along the streets in a sort of National 
Gallery of the undying dead. The temples served as 
public archives, and on their walls were stored the 
tablets of bronze and stone on which were written the 
laws, the treaties, and the proclamations of the State. 
Without the deadening influence of custom few could 
walk unmoved among such scenes, and while they 
were still fresh they may perhaps have stirred the 
historic tastes of Livy, and given a life and interest 
to his studies. It was a theme which none as yet 
had treated worthily. Some writers had taken part 
too keenly in the present to study calmly the lessons 
of the past ; others lived amid the struggle of bal- 
anced forces, and to them the course of events was 
quite obscure ; but by this time the story of the great 
Republic was like a drama which was played out to 
the end ; the curtain had dropped when the last act 
was over, and critics now could moralise about it as 
a whole, and see the proportions of the several parts. 

He was sure of sympathy at Rome. — It was a 
subject sure to meet with sympathetic interest in the 
literary circles which formed the glory of the Augustan 
age. There were many gathered there at Rome to 
encourage or advise. There was Virgil, once familiar in 
his Mantuan home with the farmer's simple pleasures 
and laborious cares which he set to tuneful verses 
in his Georgics, now weaving romantic tales about 
the wanderers from -Troy, together with the homespun 
legends of old Italy, into the tissue of the epic poem 
which was to spread a halo round the cradle of the 
Julian line, whence sprung alike the founders of Rome 
and of the Empire. There too was Horace, weary of 



L] LIVY AS A LITERARY MAN AT ROME. 7 

the* restlessness and passions of the Civil War, thank- 
ful for the genial peace which the world owed to its 
ruler, and ready to turn the lessons of the past to good 
account for his philosophy of moderation and good 
sense. And Ovid too was to be met with there, the 
spoiled darling of the fashionable circles, whose facile 
Muse, though sadly befouled by dalliance with coarser 
themes, was preparing for a higher flight among the 
tales, half-legendary, half-historic, which were strung 
together by tradition, and grouped round the holy days 
of the official calendar or Fasti. Maecenas, the great 
minister of Augustus, loved to gather round him such 
a galaxy of talents to throw a lustre on the capital; 
his subtle courtesies could win their confidence and 
prompt their genius to favourable themes through 
which to influence the spirit of the age. It was not 
his policy to break rudely with the past: rather the 
period was to count as one of restoration. The Com- 
monwealth was in name at least revived; the ancient 
temples were rebuilt; the old discipline and state re- 
ligion were enforced by potent sanctions; there was 
ample show of civil liberty, together with the blessings 
of calm and security hitherto unknown. The historian's 
labours might safely be encouraged, for if the lessons 
of the past were truly written, men must feel how sub- 
stantial was the gain to civilised life in passing from 
the long period of revolution with all its memories of 
turbulence and bloodshed to the quietude of universal 
peace. 

The circle of Maecenas. — So little indeed is told 
us of the details of Livy's life that we are not sure 
that he was one of the circle attracted round Mae- 
cenas. But there is no reason to doubt it, for he was 
on a friendly footing with the Emperor himself, and 
appeals to his evidence as an eye-witness in connec- 
tion with a visit which they made perhaps together 
to the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. But not a word 
of flattery can be charged upon his memory, not a 
phrase of more than due respect for the real master 
of the Roman world, to whom the courtly poets even 



8 LIVY. [chap. 

of the highest order paid their homage as to a being 
more than man. According to the well-known story, 
his sympathies in the first phase of the Civil War 
were so pronounced in favour of the Senate's party, 
and he spoke so doubtfully of the great Caesar, that 
Augustus called him playfully a Pompeian. What 
might seem still more hazardous perhaps, he spoke in 
terms of praise of Brutus and Cassius, murderers 
though they were of Caesar, and champions of the 
fallen cause. But his relations with the Emperor do 
not seem to have been clouded by his frankness ; he is 
said to have still seen much of his family, and to have 
urged the young Claudius to write a history when the 
boy showed a growing taste for letters. 

He had access to materials. — Happily indeed 
until the later years of Livy there was no repression of 
free speech, no censorship of literary works ; Maecenas 
played a warier game; for while his courtesies drew 
praises of the Empire from many a gifted pen, he left 
the bolder spirits unassailed, and never suffered them 
to pose as martyrs. Livy's intimacy with the ruling 
family, while it did not cramp his freedom, must have 
given him easy access to historic sources from which 
only the privileged could draw. There were public 
documents, buried away from sight in the archives of 
the State, or exposed only to official eyes. Not every 
would-be historian or dilettante student might turn 
over those valuable stores, but a word from Augustus 
was enough to open every Record Office, and give 
admission to the Library of every Sacred College. It 
may be doubted whether Livy used his opportunities 
aright in this respect, but the Public Libraries, which 
had been lately opened, contained the works of all the 
annalists, of many of whom he often speaks, and from 
whom he seems to have drawn freely. There he 
studied doubtless to good purpose, and with their help 
he published from time to time the instalments of his 
noble work, which found a welcome speedily not only 
in the cultivated society of Rome, but in far-distant 
corners of the Empire, as at Gades, whence a traveller 



1.1 LIVY AS A LITERARY MAN AT ROME. 9 

came, as the old story tells us, on his long journey to 
the capital, content to take one look at Livy and be 
gone. 

His Preface. — If we turn now to his Preface, we 
may see in what spirit he approached his work. After 
a few modest words about the greatness of the task, 
and the writers who had gone before him, he proceeds 
as follows : ' I have no doubt that my readers for the 
most part will find little interest in the story of the 
earliest ages, and will be impatient to come down to 
recent days, when the race long dominant turned its 
strength against itself in fatal struggle. But for my 
own part I would hope that my task may bring me 
thus much profit, that for a while at least I may turn 
my eyes away from the many evils of our own time, 
while I busy myself wholly with the far-off past, where 
I shall have no influence to fear, such as might disturb 
the peace, even if it did not bias the judgment of the 
writer. The traditions of the times before the city was 
founded or even planned rest on little evidence of 
genuine fact, but are embellished with poetic fancies, 
and I have no wish to maintain or to disprove their 
truth. Antiquity may claim the license of lending 
mystery to the birth-time of a State by confusing the 
limits of the human and divine. If any people have 
the right, the Romans surely may claim a divine 
parentage and early consecration. Such is their re- 
nown in war, that all the races which recognise their 
sway may calmly listen to their boast that they are 
sprung through their founder from the God of War. 
But the feeling or the judgment of my readers on such 
points can interest me little. I trust however that they 
will note with care what was the life and character of 
the men who made the Empire, and by what skill in 
the arts of peace and war they spread its bounds ; 
they should then see how discipline was gradually 
relaxed, and moral order first gave way a little, then 
tottered more and more, till it fell at last in total ruin 
in our own times, when we can neither bear our vices, 
nor the remedies that might cure them. The use of 



io LIVY. [chap. 

history mainly consists in this, that we may read therein 
the notable examples of every moral lesson, that we 
may find patterns there to copy in public and in 
private life, as well as warnings to make us shrink 
from what is hideous alike in its birth and in its issues. 
...... No State stood ever higher in moral principle 

and virtuous examples, none withstood so long the 
inroads of avarice and luxury, none set so high a value 

on contented thrift it is but lately that wealth 

and unstinted pleasures have brought with them in their 
train the greed and wanton license which recks not of 
ruin to self and all beside/ 

Its moral tone. — This Preface serves to illustrate 
some features of Livy's character and historic work. 
First we may see in it the traces of a healthier moral 
sentiment than was usual in the writers of the age. 
At Rome itself the tone of public thought was sadly 
low ; society was often heartless and corrupt, and high 
and low alike had suffered from the outburst of revo- 
lutionary passions. But homely simplicity and antique 
virtues lived on still among the country towns, where 
the extremes of poverty and wealth were not so great 
as at the centre, and social rivalries were not so in- 
tensely keen, nor the solvent of Hellenic thought so 
subtle in its action on the old moral and religious 
codes. The reaction of the provinces upon the capital 
was soon to be begun. New families of robuster 
conscience stepped into the place of the outworn 
aristocracy : statesmen and administrators, called from 
their distant homes to serve the Empire, brought with 
them traditions of unselfish probity which breathed a 
new spirit into the governing families of Rome. Long 
afterwards, in Pliny's days, Patavium was noted for the 
austere morals of its people, and Livy therefore was 
faithful to the teaching of his earlier home when he 
mourned over the decay of domestic virtues and of 
national honour which disgraced the later days of the 
Republic. He often speaks of this again, with no 
affectation or satiric wit, but in tones that have the 
ring of genuine earnestness. 



I.] LIVY AS A LITERARY MAN AT ROME. n 

Practical aim of his work. — He avows indeed 
that his interest in history is chiefly moral, and that he 
values it for himself and for his readers mainly because 
of the great lessons and pictures of true heroism which 
may be studied there, to be if possible applied in other 
spheres. We need not look therefore to find much 
antiquarian lore, or nice criticism of constitutional 
questions ; he loves to dwell on men and manners, 
and to paint dramatic scenes, which may stir the fancy 
of the reader, and haply avail to touch his heart. 

Its patriotic feeling. — Livy writes however as a 
patriot, not with dispassionate interest in human nature, 
for he was a Roman citizen in early years, when his 
birthplace was included in the civic tribes. It was 
no quiet country town, like Plutarch's Chaeroneia, 
remote from the stir of busy life, where the student 
must learn chiefly from his books. Patavium was a 
great commercial centre, and ranked among the first 
cities of the Empire. It had been true to Rome in 
the great crisis of the Punic struggle, and must have 
suffered in the long agony of the Civil Wars, in the 
first stage of which it took the Senate's side, and so 
perhaps decided the so-called Pompeian sympathies 
of Livy. Like the capital, it also had its foundation 
legends, and traced its origin to a wanderer from Troy, 
Antenor, driven like iEneas to find a home in the far 
West. Both therefore of these mythic ancestors 
appear together in the opening pages among those 
creatures of the fancy which the historian had no wish 
either ' to maintain or to disprove. 



CHAPTER II. 

A GENERAL ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 

The divisions of Livy's work. — We may now 
turn to Livy's work, to see how the vast subject was 
mapped out, and to form some general estimate of 
its characteristic qualities, some of which will be after- 
wards discussed in connection with the subjects which 
may illustrate them best. His history began with the 
meagre outlines of tradition which traced the fortunes 
of the Trojan colony planted by iEneas down to the 
foundation year of Rome 753 B.C., and after that the 
current of his narrative flowed regularly on to the 
events of his own days, ending abruptly in the year 
8 b.c, and spreading over no less than a hundred and 
forty-two books. It is probable that he intended to 
carry the work down still further to the last year of 
Augustus, and thus to complete the full tale of a 
hundred and fifty books. They seem to have been at 
first composed in separate decades, so arranged that 
each collection of ten books, and even sometimes of 
five, should have some sort of unity and completeness 
in itself, as dealing with a period more or less distinct. 
But this design was never carried out entirely. Of 
these books only thirty-five are now remaining, namely 
i-x and xxi-xlv, though we have scanty summaries 
{perwchae) of nearly all the rest. 

Many authors are referred to. — In the remaining 
books of Livy — a mere fragment, it is to be remem- 
bered, of the whole — there are many distinct authorities 
expressly mentioned, not indeed to be compared in 
number with the long lists of authors referred to often 



chap. II.] ESTIMATE OF LIVYS CHARACTERISTICS. 13 

in a modern work, but still enough to prove that he 
had read some parts at least of the chief books already 
written upon his subject. From the contemporaries 
of the First Punic Wars, Fabius Pictor and Cincius 
Alimentus, who were the earliest historians of Rome, 
nearly all those who are known to us from other 
sources are in some way referred to in his pages. 

Not all perhaps read by him. — It does not how- 
ever follow that he read them all himself in their 
entirety. He may easily have known the earlier writers 
chiefly through the accounts which he found of them 
in the later, and certainly the meagre chronicles which 
were based upon the dry official records were far less 
to his taste, and far less likely to be largely used by 
him than the diffuser works of the annalists who were 
nearer to his own time. Like Cicero he must have 
found it very hard to read the formless narratives which 
dated from the rude beginnings of the art, when finish 
of style and literary beauties were uncared for. The 
books however, which he often mentions, of Caelius 
Antipater, Licinius Macer, and Valerius Antias, came 
nearer to the canons of his own age, inferior as they 
might be to the history which eclipsed their fame, and 
in the long run superseded them entirely. 

Some writers were freely copied. — Livy's mode 
of dealing with these writers can be studied best in the 
single case where ample fragments still are left us of 
the originals from which he borrowed. For fifteen 
books we find that Polybius was closely followed, in 
regard to all that happened in the East, and so far 
there is no trace of the use of any other author. We 
should come to a like conclusion, though on far less 
evidence, from the tokens of agreement with what we 
know of Caelius Antipater for the Second Punic War, 
as also from the comparison of portions of Dionysius 
and Livy where they seem to be both copying 
from the same original in the treatment of the same 
events. The analogy of the mediaeval writers amply 
illustrates the practice. We may suppose there- 
fore that Livy took some standard author for each 



14 LIVY. [chap. 

period, working in other elements where it seemed 
absolutely needful, but in the main caring chiefly to 
improve the style and manner, at the suggestion of 
his own finer taste and richer fancy. In questions of 
importance, when he was set upon the track of in- 
consistent evidence, he may perhaps have consulted 
various sources for himself, to put his readers in 
possession of the facts. But the manual labour of 
comparing so many bulky rolls, without the modern 
help of indices or chapters of contents, was one quite 
alien to his temper, and to the literary canons of 
his age. 

Wot much, study of original documents. — There 
is still less reason to believe that he was at much pains 
to study the various documents or records which lay 
ready to the historian's hand. The sacred colleges, 
or confraternities of pontiffs, augurs, fetials and the 
like, as we have seen already, had in their archives 
ample stores of such materials, official journals, legal 
formularies, constitutional precedents of every kind, 
which had perhaps been largely used already, but 
from which much more could doubtless have been 
gleaned to illustrate historic studies. Every great 
temple was a storehouse of like data: laws, treaties, 
resolutions of the Senate, could be reckoned in Rome 
alone by thousands on the bronze tablets which were 
set up in places of safety or resort. Every country 
town could have furnished more of the same kind. 
The funeral notices upon the tombs, the legends even 
on the coins, had each their history to tell. It is 
curious enough that the earliest of the epitaphs we 
have remaining, one of the great house of the Scipios, 
gives us a record of events which does not tally with 
the corresponding page of Livy at the period of the 
Samnite wars. He speaks of one annalist at least as 
careful in such matters (diligens taliiim nionumenforum 
auc/or), and we know that long before in Greece 
special collections had been made of like classes of 
materials ; literary nicknames even were invented for 
the ' Old Mortalities ' who showed more ardour than 



ii.j ESTIMATE OF LIVYS CHARACTERISTICS. 15 

discretion in researches of this nature, but we may be 
sure that Livy's interest and temper did not point in 
that direction. 

He was not an antiquarian. — He had none of that 
scientific curiosity which is attracted to the obscurest 
problems, which would spare no pains to verify a name 
or date, and laboriously piece together scattered data 
gathered from widely distant sources to reconstruct 
the history of an institution or the picture of an epoch. 
To the antiquarian busy with the civilisations of the 
past, nothing comes amiss which helps him to realise 
the actual life of the societies that he would study. 
Any relic which they may have left behind them; the 
results of their industry, the creations of their art, the 
records of their economic troubles, their thoughts of 
the unseen world, their legal usages and sense of 
duty — any of these excite his interest as well as the 
pomp and circumstance of politics or war ; he would 
gladly pore over the fading characters in which some 
message of the past may possibly have reached us, in 
the hope that the deciphered text may fill up one of 
the many gaps in our fragmentary knowledge of these 
subjects. Even now that so many centuries have 
passed away, whole chapters of Roman history have to 
be re-written, as new materials come to hand from the 
monumental records which are still being disinterred. 
Livy too could certainly have given us more accurate 
and lifelike pictures of antiquity if his interest had been 
more many-sided and his scrutiny of the materials 
more inquisitive and minute. 

He was not a critic. — In drawing from his sources, 
it is true, he lacked critical insight and definite historic 
canons. It is the work of the later annalists, as we have 
seen, that he most closely followed, and yet he could 
hardly fail to feel that the fragments of rude Latinity 
contained in the old formularies which they copied from 
the priestly archives breathe another spirit and belong 
to other times than the fine sentiments and the 
mature lessons of statecraft which he found before 
him or invented in the speeches of the ancient worthies. 



1 6 LIVY. [chap. 

The ideal of his earliest society, statesman, general, 
debater, agriculturist by turns, is not quite the person 
to have been content in his religious life with the 
Pharisaic scruples and the soulless prayers to the 
mysterious powers that presided over the processes of 
weeding, grubbing, and of sowing (sarrilor, subruncalor, 
saeturnus). He does not quite correspond to the 
society for w r hich the elder Cato wrote in his work 
on farming, with its hard, positive, austere, and un- 
imaginative counsels of perfection. It is true that when 
on any question there is a conflict of authorities, he 
often says that we shall do best to prefer the state- 
ments of the earliest author, but then again at times 
other reasons are avowed, such as that a certain 
version of the story is in itself more credible, or more 
pleasant to believe, or more creditable to the national 
honour. There is no general estimate of the extent 
to which the annalists might be depended on for the 
earliest ages, or of the means which we might have 
of checking or confirming any of their statements, nor 
is there an attempt to compare their relative value, to 
determine their individual bias, and therefore to enable 
us to qualify or to correct their narratives. 

He does not discuss the credibility of the 
legends. — It is natural enough therefore that there 
was no serious effort on his part to disentangle the 
threads of fiction and of fact that may have been 
intertwined in the history of the remotest ages. He has 
no mind indeed, he tells us, to maintain or to disprove 
the legendary tales, with all their machinery of marvels, 
with their heaven brought very near to solid earth, and 
confusion of the human and divine. It would need a 
robust faith, he owns, to accept all this early growth 
of national fancy, but the cradle of a race so potent as 
the Roman was not to be rudely touched with hands 
profane, and the old traditions, whatever may have 
been their source, had at least this value, that they 
represented the nation's thought about its past : they 
were so implied in the language of poetry and art, had 
shaped themselves so long in literary form, and become 



H.] ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 17 

so linked to constitutional and religious customs, that 
they could not be entirely ignored in later ages, even 
by those who could no longer accept them with unhesi- 
tating faith. We can see indeed how many of the stones 
probably grew up as the artless efforts of the popular 
fancy to account for the names of familiar scenes and 
monuments, or for ancient customs and proverbial 
phrases, but Livy never pauses to discuss such theories 
of legendary matters, but calmly lets his graceful narra- 
tive flow round these creatures of the fancy in a style 
which is, at times, half poetry, half prose. 

He has no clear ideas of early society.— It is a 
far more serious omission that he took little pains to 
gather clear conceptions of even the leading features 
of the early society of Rome. He could not realise the 
rude simplicity of ancient manners, the matter-of-fact 
and unimaginative character of the old Italian faiths, 
the origin or growth of the clients, plebs, and senate ; 
the relations of the distinct comitia to the consti- 
tutional life; the real character of the earlier party 
struggles. As a literary man he had not the practical 
experience of public life to guide him, and he seems 
to have accepted readily the various statements of the 
later annalists, who threw back into the remotest ages 
the political passions of their own days, and found the 
same party-questions, and similar war-cries in widely 
remote periods of natural life. 

He makes inconsistent statements. — Another 
blemish seems to be the natural result of his usual 
practice of copying largely from a single author at the 
time, and then passing abruptly to the guidance of 
another. Sometimes as we have seen he did so for 
a period of time, sometimes only for a distinct class of 
events, as where he adheres closely to Polybius for all 
that happened in the East, while for the Western world 
he turns to a Roman writer, such as possibly Valerius 
Antias. But it needed care to fuse the different elements 
into one harmonious narrative, with no traces of incon- 
gruous patchwork. But our author was not always on 
his guard, and there is many a mark of carelessness and 



l8 LIVY. [chap. 

haste. The story of a siege already given is repeated 
in a later chapter in slightly different language, as 
drawn perhaps from another annalist who referred it 
to a different epoch; towns are taken and retaken, 
colonies revolt afresh, we find conflicting explanations 
of names, phrases, institutions ; promised descriptions 
are omitted, official arrangements are variously- stated, 
and chronological data are confused. In most of 
these cases we may almost certainly assume that matter 
extracted from one author is not brought into harmony 
with the accounts gathered from another, and where 
as in the fourth decade the two streams flow on for a 
long time side by side the obscurities or contradictions 
most frequently recur. 

Traces of party spirit. — Another result of Livy's 
debts to earlier writers is an occasional unfairness in 
the description of a party struggle. The speeches 
indeed, which seem to be peculiarly Livy's own, 
balance the arguments on either side, while they give 
the intensity of passion to the interests at stake. But 
the patrician bias of the originals referred to may be 
often clearly seen in their pictures of the leaders of 
the commons, in the rancour with which they speak of 
the noble renegades who were faithless to their order 
and espoused the people's cause, in the sinister aims 
and the unworthy motives confidently assumed, in a 
word, in the antedating of the prejudices and the actual 
circumstances of the later age of revolution. 

Traces of national prejudice. — To the same 
cause may be perhaps ascribed the influence of national 
pride in distorting the proportions of the truth. Livy 
no doubt was jealous of the Roman credit, and fully 
identified his sympathies with its good name. The 
love of country was to ancient sentiment so strong a 
duty, that few historians would have felt reluctance to 
magnify the virtues and to gloss over the failings of 
their race or city. But that work had been fully done 
already; the earlier Romans were supposed to have 
right always on their side, and to be always waging 
just and pious war (justum piumque duellum), while 



II.] ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 19 

their enemies were arrogant and treacherous and 
fickle. When victory is slow in coming it is because 
the strength of Rome is distracted by her civil feuds, 
or because the soldiers will win no laurels for the 
generals whom they hate ; yet for all that the triumph 
is not long delayed, for none can long withstand the 
conquering eagles. That this tone was a common one 
in earlier writers is clear from the misgivings which 
Livy himself cannot at times suppress. The numbers 
of the slain seem to stagger his strong faith ; victories 
are reported which are too fruitless of results to satisfy 
his reason ; and Roman perfidy or meanness is ex- 
posed in its true colours in the speeches which he puts 
into the mouth of Samnite or Greek or Carthaginian 
speakers. Yet for all that, though his candour seems 
to have been shocked by the gross partialities of earlier 
writers, he cannot quite rise himself above the same 
temptations. While following Polybius closely, he 
omits many a passage that might be distasteful to a 
citizen of Rome, tones down or disguises questionable 
acts, and ignores the lower motives which he found 
ascribed to statesmen whom he loved to honour. 

The good old times are overpraised. — No doubt, 
as we may gather from his Preface, he was predisposed 
throughout to take a favourable view of Rome's policy 
and conduct in the past. In the long career of her 
success he saw the proof of the moral virtues of the 
soldiers and the statesmen who had raised her to such 
eminence, and the keen sense with which he realised 
the degradation of his own times tended to throw 
still more into relief the simple heroism and the sturdy 
worth of the men of the good old times. It was 
indeed probably a fond delusion. With all their 
political instincts and their powers of organisation, 
the nation's story shows few traces of anything gen- 
erous and unselfish, few of the finer qualities of heart 
and temper, such as the world had learned to admire 
in Livy's days, thanks to the varied culture due to the 
fusion of so many different races. But the earnest 
spirits of antiquity, when they mourned over the vices 



20 LIVY. [chap. 

of their times, looked backward wistfully to an imagin- 
ary past, when truth and honesty prevailed on earth 
and men lived for their country rather than for party 
or for self. They were haunted by few dreams of 
future progress, but their moral ideal lay far behind 
them, and all since had been corruption and decline. 

His high moral ideal. — And the moral ideal of 
Livy was, for a Roman, singularly high. Writing as he 
did in a licentious age, when men even of high character 
condoned the vilest sensuality, and spoke lightly, almost 
jestingly at times of nameless vices, he kept his pages 
absolutely free from an impure suggestion, and felt him- 
self and helped to inspire in others a genuine enthusiasm 
for all that was really good or great. By far the larger 
portion of his work is lost, and in it all the later books 
in which he treated of the times whose degeneracy he 
mourned so deeply. Before there w r ere only passing 
references to the contrast between the manners of the 
heroic age and the revolutionary passions, the misery 
and the cure of which were to living men alike un- 
bearable. We may be sure that he would have spoken 
frankly of the evils, traced them to their fountain-head, 
and described their natural outcome in the break-down 
of the whole social fabric. He professes to write 
history with a moral purpose, and if his aim as stated 
by himself is somewhat narrow, he certainly ennobles 
it by his sympathy for what is good and pure. 

The merits and defects of oratorical training. — 
Livy began to write probably with a moral aim, but he 
certainly brought to the composition of his work the 
tastes and training of an orator, and round that central 
feature we may group many of the characteristics of 
his style. It was natural for Polybius to write what he 
called ' pragmatic history/ in which to study the causes 
of social progress and the laws which governed the 
relations of the different sides of national life, and of 
the different races which played a part together or in 
succession on the stage. But Livy would appeal to 
the emotions more than to the philosophic judgment 
He chooses especially the topics which lend themselves 



ii.] ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 21 

to a dramatic treatment, like the excitement and the 
pomp of war with all its thrilling pictures of the tramp 
of armies, and the fall of pillaged cities, and the carnage 
of the battle-field. Even the rivalry of interests and 
the clash of civil factions he throws into dramatic form, 
developing in lengthy speeches the claims and griev- 
ances of either side, with all the varied colour and 
intensity of living passions. We have therefore a 
gallery of brilliant pictures and historic portraits full 
of vivid and pathetic touches, but we have also many 
a commonplace of rhetoric, and many a diffuse 
description of an unimportant scene, suited doubtless 
to the taste of the readers of his own day, and true to 
the maxims of the schools, but dull and wearisome to us. 
We are often disappointed when we come to matters 
which require patient analysis and not stage effects or 
showy treatment \ civil struggles are obscure because 
the motives and the issue are never carefully ex- 
plained ) a long war like the Samnite leaves no 
definite memories because he fails to give us an 
account of the guiding policy and strategic aims. 
Tactics and geography do not stir his fancy, and for 
want of a little study of them he often throws but 
scanty light on a battle or campaign. The sides of 
social life which do not lend themselves so easily to 
oratorical display, like economic data, or the principles 
of law, or the nice points of the constitution, are only 
noticed in a few brief words, or drop out of his pages 
altogether. 

The beauty of his style. — While referring to the 
more brilliant side of Livy's talents the ancient critics 
praised his eloquence with one accord. The habit of 
inserting lengthy speeches in the narrative was a 
common one in Greece and Rome, and few ventured 
to object that it was hardly natural for the sentiments 
of all alike, whether soldier or statesman, foreigner or 
Roman, to flow uniformly forth in the same harmonious 
periods. It may make the work seem less historical 
to us, but it was no blemish to the Roman reader, and 
in this respect the books of Livy would have satisfied 



23 LIVY. [chap. 

the taste of his own age, as they actually found favour 
with so keen a critic as Quintilian. But their language 
refers in part also to the graces of his style (rnirae 
faciindiae, jacunditatis), and of those it seems difficult 
to speak too highly. Full of poetic finish as it passes 
lightly over the fancies of the legendary age, weighty 
and sonorous when it carries with it the debates of the 
Forum or the Senate, it can be very tender and pathetic 
when it describes the sufferings of the weak and help- 
less, or strikes upon the chords of human sympathy. 
Scarcely any writer is so many-sided, so free from 
mannerisms and monotony in the choice of words, in 
the grammatical structure of his sentences, or in the 
rhythm of his periods. Richer in colour and in fancy 
than the easy simplicity of Caesar, his style does not 
seem to be striving for effect and epigram like Sallust's, 
nor surfeit us with pregnant brevity like that of Tacitus, 
but like the river's stream, it varies in its local form 
and colour with the tracts through which it flows. 

Supposed Patavinity. — A severe censor like Asi- 
nius Pollio might affect to see in Livy's style the traces 
of the author's Patavinity, as in a different way Niebuhr 
was reminded by it of the rich colouring of the Venetian 
painters, but we can scarcely understand the meaning 
of the adverse criticism, though it evidently points to 
some provincial flavour in his words or phrases, 
brought with him it was thought from his native 
Padua, which offended the fastidious ear of some 
literary circles in the capital. 

But the popular verdict was expressed in very 
different language, and Livy seems to have been 
raised almost at once to the first place in the prose 
literature of Rome. A few years before and Cicero 
had complained that there was scarcely any Latin 
history to compare with the great works of Greece, 
and had dismissed in a few contemptuous phrases the 
claims of the annalists to such an honour. He would 
have owned, had he lived on a generation later, that 
the reproach could be justly urged no longer. As a 
natural result the earlier chronicles remained unread in 



II.] ESTIMATE OF LIVVS CHARACTERISTICS. 23 

the dust of the great libraries, and the Latin world 
speedily accepted Livy as the accredited historian of 
the great Republic. So decisive was this popularity, 
that ere long Caligula, who could bear no rival near 
the throne, talked in his mad caprice of putting under 
his imperial ban two authors, Virgil as the representa- 
tive of Latin poetry, and Livy as the acknowledged 
master in the domain of prose. 

His general popularity — due to style, to moral 
earnestness. — This was largely due, no doubt, to the 
varied beauties of his style, which was far superior 
to that of any rival in the same literary fields. But 
many other causes tended to the same result. His 
moral earnestness and high religious feeling were in 
full accord with the marked change of public sentiment 
that followed closely on the Revolution. The active 
statesmen and the Roman world of letters had been 
for the most part until lately hopeless and unbelieving 
to the core, affected by the frivolous tone of the 
Greek sceptics, frankly Epicurean in their morals, and 
speculatively balancing their Academic doubts in mat- 
ters of reason and of faith. It had been a time of 
upheaval and revolt against authority and ancient 
usage ; the national creeds had lost their hold, and 
there were no others to replace them. But the Empire 
ushered in an age of reconstruction, and the new princi- 
ples of Law and Order sought alliance with a sterner 
sense of Duty and of reverent Faith. This was due not 
only to the personal influence of Augustus, who rebuilt 
the decaying temples and sharpened the sanctions of 
morality, but the movement was continued under other 
rulers. The Stoic dogmas found a wide acceptance 
and gave far higher guidance to the enlightened con- 
science ; finer sentiments found utterance in the pages 
of the moralists, and literature of all kinds became 
more earnest and devout. Livy's work first struck the 
note, which was taken up by other voices, and dis- 
cordant sounds grew gradually fewer. 

His generous and tolerant temper. — The first 
generation of the Empire was an age also of amnesty 
2 



24 LIVY. [chap. 

and toleration. The vanquished parties were left to 
rest in peace, while the subject world willingly accepted 
the regime which secured it the blessings of repose and 
began an era of material prosperity before unknown. 
It was with a sigh therefore of relief that, now that the 
temple of Janus had been closed, men contrasted the 
turmoil and the miseries of the Civil Wars which filled 
a large part of Livy's books with the tranquillity which 
they at last enjoyed. But they were in no mood to see 
injustice done to the champions of the fallen cause. 
So many had borne a part in it themselves, or had at 
stake the reputation of their kinsmen, that the people's 
history must not be written in the spirit of a partisan, 
but must show generous forbearance to the failure and 
the follies of the leaders of the Revolution. It was one 
of Livy's crowning merits — one which we may fail to 
note aright because the books which would illustrate it 
best are lost— that he was so tolerant and large-hearted 
in his estimates of public men. He was, said ancient 
critics, candidissimns auctor (Seneca), unsparing of his 
praises of all that was excellent in human nature, slow 
to impute unworthy motives, or to taint and fly-blow a 
character by mean suspicions. Augustus might call 
him a Pompeian in reproachful jest, for treating the 
republicans with such respect, but he had no covert 
satire to resent in the praises of his conquered rivals. 
The nobles of Rome too, discontented as they were, 
must own that while the historian pointed to the 
undoubted gains of peace and order, he had no word 
of fulsome flattery to lavish on the Imperial Ruler. 

His conformity to the standard of his age. — To 
understand this popularity we should remember also 
that every age has its own standard, and that Livy 
amply satisfied their ideal of what a history should be. 
We may think him a little blind at times to the greed 
and violence and sophistry of the old Roman character, 
but they regarded it as natural enough that a writer 
should deal tenderly, with his country's reputation, and 
in treating of her foreign wars should give, not so much 
an impartial verdict on the justice of her cause, as an 



ii.] ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 25 

eloquent glorification of success. The rhetorical 
features which perhaps offend us by their constant 
repetition did not jar upon their taste, for the Roman 
genius was prone to somewhat high-pitched and 
emphatic moods ; and oratory, which played so large a 
part in public life, had retired only to the schools of 
declamation, through which it still influenced the public 
taste, and left its mark on many a literary work. We 
look for philosophic handling of great subjects, as did 
Sempronius Asellio, who complained that the preceding 
annalists had written stories to please children rather 
than histories for grown up men, but Livy's readers 
found materials enough for thought in the general les- 
sons of moral corruption and decay which he exhibited 
in concrete form in the story of the Eastern wars, and in 
the long agony of the Revolutionary struggles. The 
annalistic treatment which disturbed the natural con- 
nection of events in earlier books gives place as he 
goes on to a freer treatment of the subject, where the 
causal relation is brought out more clearly, and the 
speculative interest is more deeply stirred. 

It may perhaps be said too that our historic study 
tends to become so laboriously minute, to follow up so 
many distinct threads of thought, to analyze so many 
scientific problems, to explain so much to satisfy the 
curious reason, that there is danger that the play 
of the dramatic action may be too long arrested, and 
the living forces fail to stir our hearts. 

To the ancients history was not a science but an 
art, and it found in Livy a keen sense of beauty, and a 
graceful and most varied style. It was not a disserta- 
tion but a drama, and his scenes are full of movement, 
and his characters embodied passions. It was not a 
fragment but a living unity : the long career of the 
Republic was his theme ; its stages from childhood to 
decay passed before the reader in the several parts of 
the great connected whole which was to furnish to the 
coming generations well-nigh all that Rome cared to 
know henceforth about her past. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE AGE OF THE KINGS. 

The early legends. — The first book brings before 
us many of the legendary tales which clustered round 
the rude beginning of the city's life. Gods and demi- 
gods are seen to walk upon the solid earth, and no 
chilling gusts of doubt disperse the eery forms that flit 
awhile in the dim twilight of romantic fancy. We see 
iEneas, pious son of heavenly Venus, arrive from far- 
off Troy, and land upon the coast of Latium, where 
he weds the fair Lavinia, and braves the hate of the 
suitors and neighbours of his Latin queen. The legend 
soon wafts him from our sight, and leaves him only to 
the fancy as a guardian spirit, watching over the for- 
tunes of the long line of princes who left little but their 
names to mark the course of some three hundred years 
during which the Trojan dynasty held rule at Alba, 
And then at last the story brings us to the Palatine, 
and points out the well-known scenes familiar to the 
reverent fancy of a later age. There is the hill-side 
where the Arcadian Evander worshipped the Lycaean 
Pan and named the spot after the Pallanteum of his 
native land. Yonder is the cave where Cacus hid the 
stolen kine of Hercules, and paid for the outrage with 
his life ; hard by is the grot where Mars came down 
to woo his earthly bride, the princess Rhea Silvia, con- 
demned by an usurper to pine for ever in a cloistered 
life. We see the swollen Tiber overflow its bed, and 
reach the spot where the young twins were left to die 
by a jealous uncle's order, but the waters tenderly bear 
up the tiny cradle, and leave it safely stranded on the 
dry hill-side, where the wolf suckles the children with 
her cubs, and the shepherd's wife comes up in time to 



chap, in.] THE AGE OF THE KINGS. 27 

save them, like Pharaoh's daughter to the infant Moses. 
The God of War watched over his children, who lived 
a hardy life among the shepherds, or in conflict with 
the outlaws of the woods. So might he also bless the 
sturdy and adventurous race who w r ere one day to 
follow the wolfs nurslings and found a new. city on 
the banks of Tiber. 

The reign of Romulus. — f Good onset bodes good 
end,' we know, but the first days of Rome were clouded 
by ominous signs of future strife. The twins dispute 
about the hill where they shall build, and when the 
signs from heaven point out that the Palatine must be 
the site, still the quarrel is not ended till the hand of 
Romulus stains the rising walls with a brother's blood. 
The settlers, few in number at the first, are forced to 
offer an asylum to the outlaws who flock thither from 
other lands ; the neighbouring peoples look askant at 
the new-comers, and refuse to give their daughters to 
such questionable suitors. But they are too masterful 
to brook refusal, and take advantage of a festive 
gathering to carry off their brides by force, as the sons 
of Benjamin took wives of the virgins who came out 
to dance at Shiloh. The injured fathers fly to arms 
to rescue or avenge their daughters. Some march in 
hot impatience, thinking only of the justice of their 
cause, but give w r ay before the Roman valour, while 
their leader falls by the hand of Romulus, who offers 
up to Jupiter Feretrius the prize — the so-called spolia 
opima — of the arms taken from a chieftain slain by 
another in fair fight. The Sabines move more slowly, 
but their onset is more terrible. The height of the 
Capitoline falls into their hands, for the maid Tarpeia, 
won by the promise of their glittering bracelets, opens an 
unguarded gate, through which they pass, shewering not 
their trinkets but their shields upon the traitress, whose 
warning story links her name to the Tarpeian rock. And 
now the rival hosts are parted only by the space between 
the hills ; the shock of war is felt in what was to be in 
after days the forum, the very centre of the busy life 
of Rome. But lol between the combatants appear 



23 LIVY. [CHAP. 

the cause of all the strife, once Sabine maids, now 
Roman matrons, who with loud entreaties beg the 
warriors to stay their arms, since every fatal blow 
would make an orphan or a widow of those they love 
so well. Husbands and fathers listened to the cry and 
sheathed their swords ; two peoples, each with its own 
king, lived together as one race side by side upon the 
neighbouring hills. Other nations felt their growing 
power and the martial ardour of their king, till in due 
time, as men believed, the God of War would have 
Romulus his son beside him, and caught him up to 
heaven in a whirlwind. 

Numa. — The Sabine Numa mounted next upon the 
throne, a man of piety so rare that while he reigned 
heaven seemed brought nearer to the earth, and peace 
and good-will prevailed among his people. The cere- 
monial forms and ordinances of religion were his special 
care. To him a later age ascribed its calendar of 
holy days, and the priestly brotherhoods which watched 
over the ritual of religious life. Men thought that all 
he said or did was inspired by more than human 
insight, and later ages pointed out the grotto of Egeria 
where, so ran the tale, the immortal Nymph deigned 
to pour into his ears her mystic lore. Then first in 
those days of unbroken peace was the shrine of Janus 
closed, the symbol of security which for centuries was 
only once repeated, till after the victory at Actium 
Augustus once more barred the doors almost in the 
year when Livy's history was begun. 

Tullus Hostilius. — Tullus Hostilius, the third king 
was far more of the soldier than the priest. He 
quarrelled with Alba, mother city as she was whence 
the first founders of Rome had issued, but to spare 
more general bloodshed three brothers on each side, 
themselves the children of two sisters, entered the lists 
to do battle for their country. At the first charge two 
Romans fell, but the one Horatius was left unhurt, 
while the Alban Curiatii were all wounded. He feigned 
to fly while his opponents dragged themselves after 
him as best they could, and pressed forward with un- 



hi.] THE AGE OF THE KINGS. 29 

equal speed. And so he drew them on till they were 
far parted from each other, then turned at last and 
smote them singly down ere each could strike a blow 
to help the others. The victor was led home in 
triumph, but on his way his sister met him, only to 
see her brother decked with the spoils of her betrothed, 
who had just fallen by his hand. She could not stay 
her grief, but her wail of agony stung the victor to the 
soul, and he dealt her a death-blow with the words, 
* So die whoever grieves when the enemies of Rome 
have fallen.' The murderer was condemned to die, 
but the people to whom appeal was made, horror- 
stricken though they were, spared him his doom, for 
to old Roman eyes the love of country was a nobler 
thing and a more abiding duty than the love even of 
parent or of child. Alba, pledged as she was to serve 
as an ally, played a treacherous part in the next war, 
but vengeance was not long delayed. Her ruler 
Mettius was bound between two cars, whose horses 
furiously driven asunder dragged his mangled limbs to 
pieces. His subjects were forced to leave their ancient 
home, and people a new quarter of Rome upon the 
Coelian hill, while the old city was levelled to the 
ground. For this romantic story of the fall of Alba 
evidence was found in the tombs of the champions 
who fought on either side, and of the Horatia who fell 
a victim to her grief, in the senate-house which was 
built for the counsellors of a people thus enlarged, and 
was called Hostilia after the king's name, as well as 
in the memories of clans who traced their origin in 
after days from Alba. With it were linked also by 
tradition two of the oldest formularies known, whose 
rude Latinity and antique style date from the text- 
books of a primitive age : one that of the solemn ritual of 
treaty guarded by the college of the fetials, the servitors 
of international law ; the other drawn up for the use 
of the two Ministers of Justice, avengers of blood, 
as we may call them, from whose grasp Horatius 
appealed. 

Ancus Martius. — Ancus Martius, who succeeded, 



^o LIVY. [chap. 

was looked upon in later times as the father of the 
Plebs or Commons, for he enclosed the Aventine and 
quartered on it many thousands of the settlers from 
the conquered towns of Latium. From this reign 
dated ancient forms long afterwards in use among the 
fetials whenever they crossed the frontier to claim 
redress for injuries done, or to declare war against 
the offending power. To it also were ascribed the 
oldest bridge in Rome — the pons sublicius — and the 
fort on the Janiculum to which it led, as also Ostia, 
the ancient port of Rome. 

The dynasty of the Tarquins. — With the dynasty 
of the Tarquins the horizon widens. The legend 
brings them from Etrurian Tarquinii, and a generation 
further back from Corinth. The adventurous Lucumo 
seeks a new home where the alien may suffer from no 
stigma, and lo ! at the very gates of Rome an eagle bears 
away his cap in flight, but only to replace it soon upon 
his head. Tanaquil, his Tuscan wife, can read the 
portent and see in it the pledge of future greatness, and 
what the fates ordain, his wealth and courtesy and tact 
secure. A favourite soon alike in the court and with 
the people, he mounts upon the throne when the old 
ruler dies, whose sons must wait awhile their chances 
of succession. 

Their great works. — Now we may see the features 
of an age of foreign influence and grander aims. From 
this period date the great works of the kings, the vast 
sewers {cloacae) vaulted with colossal blocks, the lines 
of walls which our own days have seen uncovered, 
the Circus Maximus where Rome made holiday, the 
temples built to lodge the deities of Greece, with other 
products of Hellenic art. Changes such as these no 
doubt did violence to many a scruple, seemed perhaps 
to set at nought the fears of the old priesthoods and 
the fancied will of heaven. In token of this a later 
age pointed to the statue of Attius Navius, the famous 
augur, holding in his hands the razor with which he cut 
the whetstone through, to convince the mocking king 
who thought meanly of his art, that man could do by 



in.] THE AGE OF THE KINGS. 31 

faith whatever the portents of the gods foretold. The 
story of the times is rife with marvels, and soon the 
king is startled by another. 

Servius Tullius. — The son of a bondwoman, or 
a captive princess, for so fancy explained the name 
of Servius Tullius, was sleeping calmly in the palace, 
when flames were seen to light upon his head, and 
curl and flicker harmlessly around him. The queen 
was quick to read therein the will of heaven. She 
reared the lad to man's estate, gave him her daughter's 
hand in marriage, and smoothed his way to mount the 
throne. And then begins that tragedy of horrors with 
which the story of the dynasty was closed. Assassins 
hired by the jealous sons of Ancus murdered the old 
Tarquin, but with the help of Tanaquil and the favour 
of the people Servius stepped at once into the vacant 
place, and began the work which linked his name for 
ever to the extension of the city and the constitution of 
the State. Three hills, the Viminal, Quirinal, Esqu'line, 
were brought within the circuit of the walls which bore 
his name, while the citizens, ranged in classes according 
to their means, voted or fought in centuries where each 
man knew his place. 

Tarquinius Superbus. — But the peaceful work of 
statesmanship was soon cut short by the ambition of 
a younger Tarquin, married like his brother to a 
daughter of the king. We need not dwell upon the 
dark features of the story, or describe at length the 
crimes by which Tarquinius the Proud made his way 
up to the throne, how brother and wife were swept 
aside by poison that two paramours might wed in 
peace, how a reckless woman lashed her horses over 
a father's fallen body to seize the crown she would 
not wait for, and bespattered with his blood the stones 
of what was called thenceforth ' the accursed street.' 
Tradition told of a people wearied out by taskwork to 
indulge their ruler's pride of power, of neighbouring 
states cajoled by fraud or overawed by force, of the 
king's sister's son constrained to hide his natural 
temper under the cloak of folly and the name of 



3 a LIVY. [chap. 

Brutus, of the insolent license of the younger members 
of the house, and of the grievous wrong done to the 
chaste Lucretia by a prince's lust. But this was more 
than they could bear, and an explosion of fierce passion 
hurled the tyrants from their seat of power, and drove 
them forth to exile and an ignoble grave. 

The way in which these legends grew up. — 
Such were the legends of the Regal Age, which had 
linked themselves to venerable scenes, or grown up 
round old usages and names as artless wonder gave 
them birth. Livy's narrative flows calmly on with no 
apparent protest or misgiving at the marvellous features 
of the story. A halo gathered round the cradle of the 
State, and he was well content to see the figures of the 
past loom in unearthly grandeur through the mist. 
But the story was not written out till centuries after 
any of the kings had ceased to reign, and there could 
be little evidence to point to save the dim memories 
and floating fancies which gradually crystallised around 
fixed points. For we may note that almost every 
legend gathers round some spot in Rome, some 
ancient phrase or ceremonial usage, which may serve 
not indeed to prove its truth but to explain its growth. 
Some in the very sound or look suggested a meaning 
to the wondering fancy : thus Servius must have been a 
bondmaid's son, and the ' accursed street ' be named 
after a scene of horror, and later forms of marriage 
naturally point to the old story of the Sabine brides. 
We must remember also that the spirit of Roman law 
was rigorously formal, and every public act must have 
its proper symbol and its prescriptive phrase. The very 
words of these were sacred, and as such noted in the 
text-books of the priests, with the earliest precedents 
of which record could be found. Out of such ex- 
planatory stories, and the scattered hints in books of 
ritual, variously enlarged in the course of many genera- 
tions and often with conflicting versions, grew at last 
the narrative, such as we have it, of the Regal Period 
of Rome. 

The ballad theory. — Were there any lays or 



in.] THE AGE OF THE KINGS. 33 

ballad-poems, we may ask, which embodied such 
beliefs, and gave a definite shape and substance to 
what might else have been but vague traditions ? It is 
possible that there were such. It was natural enough 
in early days to chaunt in rude verse the chieftain's 
praises or stirring tales of marvellous adventure. 
Most peoples have had such verse before a literature 
in prose was born, though the old Roman genius was 
of no poetic type, and little tuned to dalliance with the 
Muses. But even assuming that there were such 
ballads we have no data to determine what they were 
or of what date, nor if we had them would they help 
us much to disentangle the threads of fiction from the 
homely truth. 

Historical traces of the regal period. — Unlike 
the early kings of whom we read elsewhere in classic 
story, those of Rome succeeded by election and by no 
hereditary right. We find some evidence of this in 
the usage and the name of inter rex, given to the 
senators in later days who stepped for a while into 
a vacant place till a new magistrate could be ap- 
pointed. Tradition indeed, as we have seen, makes 
the choice so free and open that even aliens are called 
at times to mount the throne. But there is little in 
the story as we find it to account for the horror of 
Royal Power which seems to have been a strong and 
abiding sentiment at Rome, so much so that the dread 
of it was turned with fatal force against ambitious 
statesmen, when the ominous cry was raised in party 
struggles that any of them was plotting to make him- 
self a king. It was no genuine experience of misrule, 
for there is little such recorded in the legends, but the 
distasteful facts of Eastern royalty surrounded by its 
servile crowds which branded the lesson on the 
Roman conscience. Livy does not throw any light 
upon this subject, excepting in so far as he uses his 
darkest colours for the picture of the later Tarquin, and 
sees the charter of Roman liberty in the Valerian law, 
passed in the early years of the Republic, which de- 
nounced the would-be monarch as an outlaw. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH TO THE DESTRUCTION OF 
ROME BY THE GAULS. 

The early Commonwealth. — The Regifuge, or 
Banishment of the Tarquins, prepared the way for the 
Republic. The place of the king was taken by two 
consuls, holding office only for a year, and assisted by 
the Senate, the great Council of the State. Below was 
the Assembly (Comitia) of the Burghers ranged in 
Classes and Centuries according to the amount of land 
each owned. At first the people watch with jealous 
fears over their new-born freedom. The whole clan of 
the Tarquins must retire, even Collatinus, consul though 
he was, and husband of Lucretia the victim of the 
banished prince. Then Valerius excites suspicion 
because his house frowns like a fort from the hill-top, 
and. he must build down in the valley, and lower his 
fasces — symbol of his rank — before the sovereign 
people. That done he might go on to win their favour, 
and be styled Publicola, ' the people's friend/ for his 
laws which denounced kingly power, and secured for 
the oppressed right of appeal to their own order. 

Its dangers from within. — But the young Re- 
public had not yet made good her claim to rule 
herself. The first danger came from enemies within. 
Noble malcontents conspired to bring back the Tar- 
quins, and among them the sons of the very Brutus 
who had stirred the State against them. A loyal slave, 
Vindicius, disclosed the plot. The patriot father in his 
consul's dress pronounced their doom, and saw un- 



chap. iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 35 

moved the heads of his own children roll upon the 
scaffold. 

Lars Porsena. — That peril past, Lars Porsena of 
Clusium mustered his Etrurian hosts to reinstate an 
old ally. They swept all before them as they marched, 
and startled Rome saw the enemy upon the heights, 
and the bridge almost within their grasp. One hero, 
Horatius Codes, stood at bay against a host, and held 
his ground till the citizens had cut the bridge behind 
him, then plunged into the stream, and made his way 
in safety to the bank. For centuries a bronze statue 
in the Forum bore his name, and as they passed it 
fathers told their children the story of that gallant deed. 
Roman pride dwelt fondly also on the picture of the 
bold Mucius, who started forth alone to slay Porsena 
among his royal guards, and when detected thrust his 
hand into a blazing fire to show what was the temper 
of a Roman's courage, saying that three hundred such 
as he had sworn to kill the king. Half in fear and 
half-admiring the enemy withdrew his forces, and left 
Rome free to choose her rulers, and to echo the praises 
of the bold Mucius, whom they called Scaevola, ' the 
left-handed/ He even left, so generous was his 
mood, his camp stores and the trappings of his tent, 
which the people sold by auction as they pleased, 
and from age to age men told the story when they 
used the familiar proverb that ' the goods of king 
Porsena were up for sale/ or as they passed along the 
1 Tuscan street/ There were indeed other and less 
flattering stories which implied that Rome was con- 
quered, and in token of her degradation made to beat 
her iron arms to ploughshares; but this only showed 
how little certainly was known, and Livy's national 
pride preferred to dwell upon the brighter side of the 
tradition. 

The Latin League. — Then the League of the 
Latin Towns struck a last blow for the old Tarquin. 
So great was the alarm at Rome that it seemed needful 
that one strong hand should wield the forces of the 
State now that all was to be risked upon a single die. 



36 LIVY. [chap. 

The two consuls must give place to a dictator, from 
whom there might be no appeal, and whom no citizen 
dare refuse to serve. The leaders fought like Homeric 
chieftains in the ranks at the battle of the Lake 
Regillus, and fell in that ' Mort of Heroes ' on the 
fatal field. 

Legends of local growth. — Men fancied that they 
saw the divine brothers, Castor and Pollux, in the 
foremost ranks, and that they vouchsafed to bear the 
tidings of the victory to. Rome. But Livy would not 
crowd his page with marvels, and tells us only of the 
general's vow to build the temple, which was raised 
to them in the Forum when the war was over. Indeed 
as before we see the stories growing round the monu- 
ments or scenes of Rome. The Campus Martius was 
part of the banished Tarquin's land, seized by the 
State, and hallowed to the god of war ; the crops 
cut upon it and flung into the Tiber formed the first 
beginning of the island which soon rose above the 
stream. The name even of the faithful slave Vindicius 
was thought to be the source of the form in which 
freedom was often given, * per vindictam/ 

Discontent and Discord. — The scene suddenly 
is changed, and we see only distress and discontent 
within the city. The rich oppress the poor, and 
make bondsmen of their debtors. But general terms 
may fail to touch us, so to stir the imagination of the 
reader an old man is brought before us, disfigured with 
unkempt hair and squalid rags, but known by the 
bystanders as a veteran who had served bravely in a 
post of honour. As the crowd gathered round him 
he began to tell how a border foe had burnt his 
homestead and driven away his flocks, till he was 
forced to borrow money to restock his farm. But the 
interest of the loan took all he had, and his creditors 
at last laid hands upon him, and forced him to work like 
a galley-slave beneath the lash. To prove his tale the 
scars of the cruel blows were still to be seen upon 
his back. The crowd is all aflame at what it hears, 
and clamours loudly for redress. First they try to stop 



iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 37 

the levies, but are won awhile by fair words or national 
pride, till at last they rise against the nobles, and draw 
sullenly aloof to the Mons Sacer a few miles from the 
city, where they claim as the price of peace to have 
Tribunes of their choice, to be the spokesmen of their 
wrongs and the guardians of their order, and as such 
sacrosanct, or screened by law from personal outrage. 
A few words of explanation here are needed. 

The early history of the Plebs. — Primitive 
Rome seems to have grown out of a union of houses 
(genles), each of which lived with its own slaves and 
retainers {clients) as a patriarchal whole. The house- 
fathers (patres) came together as a council or a Senate 
to debate on questions which concerned them all. 
Trade and war gathered others round them, who were 
not bound by any of these corporate ties— immigrants 
or conquered peoples or clients whose clan-leaders had 
died out. Such may have been the plebs at first, 
growing fast in numbers and importance, as the later 
kings enlarged their borders, or strengthened the Third 
Estate against the nobles. The downfall of royalty 
destroyed the balance, and the plebs lost their natural 
protectors, till they gained Tribunes in their stead. 
But troubled times bore hardly on husbandmen of 
scanty means. Border warfare ruined their home- 
steads or destroyed their crops. There was little 
capital, and bad security, and the rate of interest was 
very high, while to protect the lenders the laws of 
debt were terribly severe. The older families alone 
had hoards to lend, and history pourtrayed them as 
hard Shylocks, who would have their l pound of flesh/ 
Again and again therefore in the earlier ages we hear 
of economic evils, and the State is appealed to for 
relief. Sometimes the cry is to protect the person of 
the debtor, who may no more be bound or sold to 
slavery in default of payment. Now the rate of 
interest must be lowered, and a maximum enforced 
by law ; or at the worst the burden must be lightened, 
and creditors be forced to accept a part in payment 
of the whole. The present aspect of each grievance 



3 8 LIVY. [chap 

is often vividly described by Livy, as in the story of the 
veteran above. We see the sturdy yeoman leave his 
homestead for the wars, and come back only to find 
wife and children homeless; we see the bonds of 
usury tighten on him, and hear at last the fetters 
clanking on his limbs as he drudges hopelessly for 
a hard master. The passionate sympathy, the wide- 
spread discontent, the clamours for redress are pictured 
to our fancy or reflected in the speeches of the people's 
leaders. But his pages do not always show us how 
each grievance is redressed, or the popular clamour 
silenced. The first cry is from the ruined debtors, and 
it leads to a secession which secures no change in the 
laws of debt, but instead the appointment of the 
Tribunes. Then the stir is for allotments of the 
State domain, but after a w 7 hile that dies away, and 
its place is taken by a movement for a code of 
written law. There is no explanation offered why 
one thing is asked for and another given, nor indeed 
as to how far the social evils have been cured. But 
we can see that meantime the plebs is feeling its own 
strength, and we can trace the several stages of its 
self-assertion. Obscure as is its social movement, its 
political progress is defined more clearly. 

The progress of the Plebs. — In the tribunes it 
had recognised champions; it secured a regular as- 
sembly (comitia tributa) as a machinery for organised 
action, and the resolutions passed in it gained in due 
time the weight of law. Then it aspired to have the 
right of intermarriage with the nobles, and from that 
level to gain a place in all the offices of State. It was 
nearly a century before it made its way even to the 
lowest rank, among the quaestors, who were little more 
than clerks of the treasury, or paymasters in the camp 
(b.c. 421). T*hat gained, it was easier to go forward. 
To save their pride, the dominant order spread for a 
time the name and powers of the consuls over a more 
numerous board, styled Consular Tribunes, among 
whom the plebs might hope to have a place. But at 
length, after fifty years of ceaseless struggle, the Li- 



iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 39 

cinian laws seated a plebeian consul as of right in the 
first rank (b.c. 367), and after that it was a question of 
a few years only when a dictator of like birth should be 
called on in the hour of need to save his country, and 
the privileged houses should be forced to see their 
rivals hold the censorship with all its large powers of 
control over the civic status and the Senate's roll, and 
the praetorship even, with its rights of jurisdiction, 
which had been long and jealously maintained. 

General conditions of the struggle. — There is 
no clear and comprehensive sketch in Livy of these 
changes, owing perhaps to the arrangement of his 
Annals by which the events of every year are separately 
stated, and there is much repetition in describing the 
debates and character of the party struggles. If we 
gather up the general features which recur most often 
we shall see that the patricians throughout were the 
war-party, ready to meet the movement of reform by the 
cry that the enemy was in the field and Rome's honour 
was at stake. At other times they trusted to the spell 
of their haughty self-assertion, to the social influence 
of their ancestral dignities, to the voting power of their 
clients or retainers, to the intrigues by which they 
fostered strife among the tribunes, to timely con- 
cessions to the gathering storm, at times even to 
strong-handed violence to overawe opponents, or to 
scandalous abuse of the machinery of the State religion, 
through which they might find some bar or technical 
objection to any public act. The commons however 
had time and numbers on their side. Their champions 
could stop the levies, if need were, by screening the 
citizen who would not answer to the call, by fiery 
appeals to the outraged feelings of their order, by 
arraigning insolent nobles before the popular as- 
sembly, and by persistent pressure of their measures 
of reform in the teeth of constant opposition. These 
are the commonplaces of the great constitutional 
struggle. 

Apologue of Menenius Agrippa. — But such are 
not the social topics in which Livy finds most interest. 



40 LIVY. [chap. 

There are others interspersed, which better admit of a 
pictorial treatment. Such is the scene in which 
Menenius Agrippa, envoy of the nobles to the com- 
mons on the Sacred Mount, tells them the homely 
parable of the belly starved by the discontented 
members who refuse to work for it any more, but 
soon find out to their cost that ' if one member suffers, 
the other members suffer with it.' 

Story of Coriolanus. — Another tale caught Shak- 
speare's fancy and passed by his hand into an English 
dress. The young Marcius, who gained a name from 
conquered Corioli, was a hot noble, hateful to the 
plebs, whom the tribunes hounded on against him. 
Popular fury drove him from the land to seek a home 
among the Volscians, the enemy he once had routed. 
They gladly gave him house and honours, trusted him 
even with their army in the field. Rome woke one 
day in panic to find her bravest son scouring the plain 
of Latium and marching to her gates. Resistance 
seemed hopeless, but entreaties might prevail. Envoys, 
magistrates, and venerable priests pleaded for mercy, 
but in vain, till as a last hope his wife and mother 
went forth with a long line of noble matrons and 
moved his stubborn heart to shame. He led his 
Volscian forces homeward, and they who loved him 
saw his face no more. 

It does not bear criticism. — We are taken by 
the story into the romantic realms of fancy, where 
sober doubts are out of place ; else we might ask why 
the nobles gave their champion up so tamely to the 
fury of the people, and why the Romans cowered 
behind their walls like startled deer when he drew 
near, or why the Volscians followed him so blindly, 
alien though he was, and let him lead them back when 
the prize seemed in their grasp. 

The self devotion of the Fabii. — In impassioned 
rhetoric he describes the gallant offer of the Fabian 
house to keep watch and ward for -Rome in the 
fortress on the Cremera in sight of the old enemies 
of Veii. No clan bore a nobler name, or was more 



iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 41 

rich in generals and statesmen. Year after year 
seven members of the family were consuls, and now 
it volunteered to bear* the brunt of danger in the field. 
We see the warriors before us pacing in slow pro- 
cession through the gate — ill-omened afterwards to 
Roman eyes — followed by the blessings and glad hopes 
of thousands, but only to fall soon after in the fatal 
ambuscade, from which only one youth at Rome was 
spared to save his family from extinction. 

Homely simplicity of Cincinnatus. — When 
occasion offers Livy loves to dwell upon the rude simpli- 
city of primitive manners in contrast to the luxury and 
license of his own days. He gladly draws a moral 
from the homely life of Cincinnatus, who was called 
in the supreme hour of need to save the State. The 
messengers went in haste to summon the dictator, to 
tell him that the army was surrounded by the Aequian 
forces, and that his country called him to the rescue : 
but they found him stripped almost to the skin, with 
his oxen harnessed to the plough on the tiny farm 
which bore his name in later days. He donned 
the general's dress and marshalled his volunteers for 
service, and after speedy victory laid down his office to 
go back in sixteen days to guide his plough. 

Examples of patrician insolence. — In contrast 
to such modest worth he pourtrays for us patrician 
insolence in all its darker moods, now with the 
petulance of youth assaulting quiet citizens in wanton 
riot, now abusing the dignity of magistrate and judge 
till it provoked the cry for a fixed statute law, or for 
provisions to limit magisterial license, such as issued 
finally in the Commission of Decemvirs, entrusted for a 
time with ample powers to keep the peace and make 
the laws as sole agents of the State. 

The Claudian family. — One family, the Claudian, 
beyond all others is singled out to point a moral and 
illustrate the characteristic fixity of Roman types. 
An Appius Claudius is always headstrong and ad- 
venturous, impatient of restraints of law, full of 
audacious self-reliance and haughty contempt for all 



42 LIVY. [chap. 

below him. Livy never seems to weary, though his 
readers may, of descriptions of their proud words 
and insolent deeds, which bring them into conflict 
with the commons and its leaders. 

Appius Claudius the decemvir.— None is de- 
scribed with more detail of circumstance than Appius 
Claudius the decemvir. He was the moving spirit, as 
it appeared, of the new board of ten co-regents, whose 
character was seen to change entirely, as he gave the 
word. In their first year of office they were intent 
to rule with justice and to frame good laws, and 
when men heard that their work was not quite done, 
they were well-pleased to give some of them at least 
another year of power. But all at once another mood 
came over Appius and his fellows. The new laws 
which were added to make up the code of the Twelve 
Tables put a ban on alliances between the orders ; their 
rule was harsh and overbearing, a legalised machinery 
of greed and rapine. The year came to an end, 
but they gave no sign of leaving office. They braved 
the murmurs of the Senate and the brooding dis- 
content of every class. But they carried their insolence 
too far at last. A gallant veteran, Siccius Dentatus, 
hero of a hundred fights, was left to die by his own 
general, like Uriah at a word from David, because his 
tongue had wagged too freely in the camp. At home 
a flagrant wrong done to the maid Virginia covered 
the name of Appius with infamy and roused people 
and soldiery alike to arms against his rule. He cast 
his lustful eyes upon the girl, and bade his freedman 
claim her as his slave, while he sat himself upon the 
seat of justice. Her kinsmen, her betrothed, her 
father even called in hot haste from the camp, were 
ready to disprove the charge, but Appius adjourned 
the case, and gave the claimant possession of her 
person, until the suit should be finally decided. 
Then the father in despair begged the officers to 
stay their hand a moment, led his daughter a few 
steps aside, and seizing a knife that lay upon a 
butcher's block hard by, took her life with his own 



iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 43 

hand, since he knew not else in what way to save 
her honour. 

Characteristic speeches in Livy. — Great as was 
the pictorial skill of Livy, we must own that the actors 
in the early history were often too shadowy and indis- 
tinct to live in our memory as real persons. But his 
undoubted powers found ample scope in the rhetorical 
handling of a great party question, where principles 
must be charged with electric currents by the passions, 
and brought in a concrete shape before the fancy. 
To this end he freely employs the speeches, often of 
great length, which he puts into the mouth of the chief 
agents. The ancient historians seldom scrupled to do 
this, and most of them took little trouble to make the 
speeches vary in their style, or cause the reader to 
forget the writer's skill in rhetoric. In Livy they con- 
tain the philosophy of the dramatic action. Instead of 
moralising on the lessons of a story, or tracing the 
intertwining causes and effects, he brings in the party 
leaders, like advocates before the bar, to exhaust all 
that can be urged on either side by appeal to reason 
or to feeling. The speakers may be else but little 
known, tribunes or consuls taken from the monumental 
rolls. We are not tempted to forget the historian in 
his subject, but we cannot but admire his skill in mar- 
shalling the topics that lead up to it, or group them- 
selves around the main issue of the question in dispute. 

The debate on the bill of Canuleius. — One 
of the earliest of such examples, where there is 
much fulness of detail, is to be found in the debate 
on the bill of Qanuleius to sanction intermarriage 
between the rival orders of the State, the bar to which 
doubtless rested on old usage, and not, as Livy tells 
us, on a new law of the decemvirs. To the nobility 
the claim might well appear presumptuous, a break- 
ing down of the old landmarks, an encourage- 
ment of the fond hopes of revolutionary spirits. It 
was not only a radical but irreligious change, for 
it tended to disturb the corporate relations which 
were consecrated by religious forms, and to need- 



44 LIVY. [chap. 

lessly offend the powers of heaven whose sanction 
was thus set at nought. As such it was alike an 
outrage in Church and State. But there were con- 
clusive answers to such fears, The growth of the body 
politic thus far had been a series of innovations. New 
clans had been enrolled in early ages, and the proud 
Claudian itself was a late comer : all intercourse 
between these tended to efface the old distinctions, 
consecrated as they were by separate worships. The 
State Church should be something larger than the 
religious usages of any of its own component groups, 
and wrongs continued in the name of heaven were 
the worst outrage on the justice of the gods. 

Party bias shown in story of Sp. Maelius. — 
In dealing with such questions Livy's impartiality 
comes out to view, or his power as an advocate to 
take up either side by turns and to do justice to its 
merits. In the great debate between the orders his 
sympathies seem fairly balanced, though the turbulent 
recklessness of the last tribunes, and the worthless- 
ness of the Roman rabble of his own days, gravely 
affect his judgment in many a passage of old history. 
Even here it is most likely that he repeats without 
misgivings the prejudiced statements of some earlier 
chronicler, who wrote in the interest of his order or 
his party. We may probably ascribe to such a source 
the story in the form we have it of Spurius Maelius, 
the people's friend, whose liberal largesses of corn in 
time of dearth won wide-spread favour, till his head 
grew dizzy with the fumes of popular applause, and 
wild hopes of royal power fired his fancy. But his 
treasonous ambition, if such indeed, was doomed to 
speedy ruin, for the patricians, less patient than the 
later nobles, proclaimed martial law through a dictator 
before Maelius could call his friends to arms, and had 
him struck down as a traitor in the streets. Perhaps 
the story grew out of the regret of after times that 
the Senate could not dispose as easily of every pestilent 
tribune 'who would curry favour with the mob by loosing 
the purse-strings of the State. Yet men showed the 



iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 45 

spot in after ages which was called the Aequimaelium, 
and was thought to be so named because the house of 
Maelius had been there levelled to the ground. 

Obscurity and repetitions in early wars. — 
Political passions, however antedated, give life and 
vivid colouring to many of the themes in Livy's pages. 
But he is not always so successful when he treats of 
military matters. The wars of the Romans were for 
ages mainly border forays, petty skirmishes, and hasty 
sieges, tedious to dwell upon at any length. But 
year after year the earlier annalists whom he followed 
recounted the same incidents with like details, drew 
upon their fancy for rhetorical descriptions of a battle 
equally possible and valueless in any case, and shame- 
lessly exaggerated the numbers of the slain. Livy's 
sober sense is shocked at times by the figures which 
he copies out. How could the same petty enemy, he 
asks, recruit so rapidly its losses, and put such vast 
armies in the field ? He is weary, he confesses, of such 
monotonous accounts. But still, as before, he makes 
the Aequians and Volscians join hands behind the 
cover of the dark woods of Algidus, and pounce upon 
some Latin township, or spread terror through the 
Roman homesteads, till the legions arrive upon the 
scene and scatter them as dust before the wind. Still 
Etruscan towns are taken and retaken, and the din of 
arms is ever heard, but we can trace no order and no 
progress in the wars, and for a century or more the 
frontiers are not visibly extended. 

The siege of Veii. — At length there comes a 
crisis. A great effort is made, and a crowning 
victory gained. Rome's rival and close neighbour 
Veii, often defeated in the field, is at last besieged 
in earnest. Winter and summer the beleaguered city 
is close watched, and the lines are drawn more closely, 
till after a siege well-nigh as long as that of Troy, 
she falls. Portents and mysterious signs meantime 
had not been wanting. The waters of the Alban 
Lake had risen high above their natural level, and 
none could tell the reason, till an old soothsayer made 



46 LIVY. [chap. 

captive by a Roman soldier told a prophecy which he 
had read in Etruria's sacred books that Veii was 
doomed to ruin when those swelling waters fell. It 
sounded like an idle tale, but the god Phoebus from 
his distant shrine at Delphi sent like warning, and at 
last a passage was cut through the solid rock to draw 
the flood away. Then the siege was pressed more 
closely, and pay given for the first time to the soldiers, 
who tunnelled their way beneath the rock to the middle 
of the citadel itself. Strange to tell, the besiegers burst 
through the mine in time to snatch from the priestly 
hands the very sacrifice which promised victory to 
those who offered it, and Juno's statue showed her 
willingness to quit the doomed city and betake herself 
to Rome. So signal was the triumph that there was 
much talk of moving Rome itself to the old site of 
Veii, or of founding a twin state between the two, 
Even the general himself was dizzied by success, 
claimed the honours due to heaven, or the right to 
deal too freely with the spoil, till the people grew 
suspicious, and were persuaded by his enemies to fix a 
slur upon his name. But this he could not brook, and 
left the city praying that the gods would soon make his 
countrymen regret their loss. Nor was the answer 
long delayed. 

The Invasion of the Gauls, B.C. 390. — The 
Gallic hordes had crossed the Alps long since, and 
settled in North Italy, but now stirred by some rest- 
less instinct they moved southward, sweeping all before 
them. First they fell upon Etruria, whose cities, en- 
gaged in a fierce struggle for life, had no strength or 
time to rescue Veii from her fate. Soon the invaders 
were at Clusium, which sent in haste to Rome for help, 
and envoys were despatched to warn the aliens to be- 
gone. But the ambassadors forgot their mission, and 
took part in an affray where a Gallic chieftain fell. 
Rome when appealed to would grant no redress, and 
the Gauls in their fierce anger raised the siege of 
Clusium, and marched with all speed on Rome. On 
Allia's fatal field the legions were routed almost with- 



iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 47 

out a blow, and such was the panic that the gales were 
left unbarred ; the city lay at the mercy of the Gauls, 
whose ranks were seen at sunset near the walls. They 
passed the gates upon the morrow, and roved as they 
pleased about the streets, where all was still. The citi- 
zens had fled away: only here and there an aged 
senator was sitting in his porch in perfect calm, while 
the wild strangers stared and wondered. At length 
the spell was broken. One of the old men smote with 
his ivory staff a Gaul who stroked his beard, and his 
gray hairs were soon dabbled in his blood, and all was 
given up to massacre and pillage. The Capitol alone 
held out, and that was nearly lost in an unlooked-for 
night assault. The enemies had almost scaled the 
ramparts, when the sacred geese of Juno gave the 
alarm, and the brave Manlius rushed up in time to beat 
off the assailants. But time went on and still no suc- 
cour came, while famine thinned the ranks of the 
defenders. There was nothing for it but surrender on 
such terms as they could gain. The Gauls were ready 
to retire for a thousand pounds of gold by weight. 
But they brought false balances to test the sum, and 
on dispute their chieftain Brennus threw his sword into 
the scale, and cried Vae-victis, 'woe to the conquered' 
who dispute the right of might. But in that hour of 
direst need unlooked-for help was near. Camillus had 
reformed meantime the scattered legions, and now 
arrived upon the scene, defied the Gauls to do their 
worst, and appealed in his turn to the decision of the 
sword. The battle ended in the total rout of the 
invaders, whose scattered hordes withdrew in haste to 
their old homes about the Po. 

Destruction of Rome and of sources of early 
history.— But fire and sword meanwhile had made 
havoc of the city, which lay in ruins where all memo- 
rials of the past were swept away. For three centuries 
and a-half all history must rest on the insecure tradi- 
tions which lived in the memory of the people, or 
gathered round great names, with few stable data of 

substantial fact defined by sure evidence of earlier 
3 



48 LIVY. [chap. iv. 

times. The scanty chronicles kept by the College of 
the Pontiffs, the family histories which gathered up the 
memories of noble houses, these or the like if they 
existed must have perished when Rome was fired and 
pillaged. Lists of the great officials were carried no 
doubt further back, but Livy's frequent hesitations as 
to the date of consuls or dictators prove that these 
lists were only the reconstructions of a later age for 
which sure data must have oftentimes been wanting. 



CHAPTER V. 

FROM THE INVASION OF THE GAULS TO THE END OF 
THE SAMNITE WARS. 

Hard times at Rome. — The second half of the 
first decade opens with a time of gloom when Rome 
was slowly rising from her ruins, and the fierce 
marauders might return at any moment, and her old 
enemies were still on the alert. But the danger from 
without could not drown the din of jarring animo- 
sities within. After the losses of the past, capital was 
scarce and risk seemed great. The poor who had, 
suffered heavily were loud in their complaint that the 
rich had no mercy on their helpless neighbours, but 
were pitiless in their enforcement of the law of debt. 
The landless clamoured for their portion of the ground 
that had been won as the frontiers were extended at 
their enemies' expense. The leaders of the Commons 
on their side were urgent that their legal right to rise 
to the consulship should be conceded. 

Story of M. Manlius Capitolinus. — The patri- 
cian Manlius, styled Capitolinus for his timely defence 
of the citadel against the Gauls, was full of sympathy 
for the poor debtors and did his utmost to relieve 
them. His order looked upon him as a renegade 
and railed against him, going so far at last as to im- 
prison him as a disturber of the peace. The clamours 
of the populace forced them to release him, but fired 
by ambition or revenge he stirred the plebs against the 
governing classes by wild charges which he could not 
prove. When put upon his trial again he touched 



50 LIVY. [chap. 

men's hearts by appealing to the Capitol which he had 
saved ; his accusers had to adjourn and call the court 
elsewhere before they could have him doomed to death 
at last. He was followed to the grave by the hatred of 
his order, and their feelings found an echo in the lan- 
guage of the later annalists who handed down his story 
with all the treasonous imputations on his honour. 

Supposed origin of movement for Reform. — 
It was left to the natural champions of the Commons 
to succeed by constitutional means where Manlius had 
wholly failed. The movement is ascribed by Livy, it 
is true, to very personal and petty causes. A noble, 
Fabius, had two daughters, married the one to a patri- 
cian, the other to a plebeian of distinction. The latter 
on a visit one day to her sister was startled by the 
liciors or bedells who smote with their staves upon the 
door, as they escorted home the master of the house, 
then serving in high office. Stung by her sister's 
mocking words as she expressed surprise, as well as 
by the deference of all around the husband, she went 
away to brood over the thought that no such honours 
could give lustre to her own plebeian home. Her father 
when he saw her foolish sorrow bade her take heart, 
for she might have her will one day. Then he took 
counsel with his son-in-law Licinius, and the issue of 
their schemes was a bold project of Reform. 

The Lieinian bills, B.C. 367.— Three bills, called 
the Lieinian, were brought in together to deal at once 
with the three great questions of land, of debt, and 
honours. Put forward thus together they united in 
their favour the various classes of the malcontents, and 
were therefore sure of powerful support. The patri- 
cians strained every nerve to thwart the measures; they 
relied on the moral influence of the Senate : on the 
voting power of their clients : on the pressure of war 
and the levies for the legions: on dissensions sown 
among the tribunes: and at last on the appointment 
of a dictator to put down possible mob-riot. But the 
tribunes, C. Licinius and L. Sextius, were bold and 
resolute statesmen. Year after year they procured their 



v.] THE AGRARIAN LAWS. £r 

re-election as a pledge that the people were in earnest. 
They met the intrigues of the patricians with a startling 
blow, suspending all the elections through their tribu- 
nician veto, and thus bringing all the business of the 
State to a dead-lock. At length after a struggle of ten 
years the government sullenly gave way ; the bills were 
passed, and as a symbol of the triumph Sextius became 
chief magistrate of Rome. There was nothing revo- 
lutionary in the laws affecting land and credit. As 
regards the latter the capitalists had to suffer somewhat 
for the relief of the hard-pressed, and to that end 
simple interest only and not compound might be 
reckoned on the debts, and payment be allowed by three 
annual instalments. The Agrarian measure had a 
further aim, and calls for some words of explanation. 

Objects of Agrarian measures. — On the sub- 
mission of a conquered enemy to Rome most of the 
land was left in the same hands, but a part was confis- 
cated as the price of peace. Of this some was often 
sold to pay for the expense of the campaign, and some 
from time to time divided in small lots among the 
poorer citizens, who farmed them as they could. Often 
as the condition of the grant, they were forced to leave 
their homes and do their duty in the frontier garrisons, 
which though called by the same name as our modern 
colonies, served a military purpose in securing the 
conquests already made. The remainder of the land 
annexed was occupied by the great families, but not 
on any freehold tenure, and subject to the State's right 
to resume what was provisionally dealt with. But the 
occupants, or possessores, had never been, disturbed : by 
the connivance of the chief officials wide tracts of land 
were parcelled out among a few landowners, and the 
tithes or other dues with which they had been saddled 
were allowed to fall into arrears, if not entirely remitted. 
Colonial allotments were resisted by the governing 
classes, who coveted the occupation of fresh lands, to 
the manifest neglect of the military and economic in- 
terests of Rome. To deal with this growing evil the 
Licinian law enacted a maximum of 500 jugera, beyond 



52 LIVY. [CHAP. 

which no citizen could hold any of the State-domain. 
The excess in any case was to be at once resumed, 
and care to be exercised in future grants. The measure 
brought immediate relief, and for a long time we hear 
no more of the Agrarian question. 

Livy's account inadequate. — It must be owned 
that Livy's treatment of the struggle at this period is 
far from clear or adequate. It is not creditable to his 
judgment to accept a petty personal cause for a great 
movement, as in the foolish story which ascribed the 
policy of the Licinii to the wounded vanity of a daugh- 
ter piqued by the status of a favoured sister who had 
passed into a patrician house by marriage. He never 
clearly states the nature of the constitutional weapons 
at the disposal of each order, nor explains how the 
struggle can have dragged on so many years. In 
dealing with the land-law more especially he betrays a 
want of analysis and of definite details. He says nothing 
of the State-domain, nor of the manner of its occupa- 
tion and the growth of the estates which were the 
special object of this legislation. It is mainly by the 
light reflected from the period of the Gracchi, and 
from the descriptions given in other authors of the 
interests then in question, that we are able to under- 
stand the earlier movement. 

The Legend of the Curtian Lake. — To relieve the 
graver themes of constitutional progress, the annalists 
of the period found a place for the story of the Curtian 
Lake, which illustrates most vividly the Roman ideal of 
self-devotion. A chasm yawned, so ran the tale, upon 
a sudden in the Forum, in the very centre of the busy 
life of Rome. It would not close again, and none 
could fill it up, and the scared people vainly asked the 
meaning of the portent, till the seers told them it was 
written that one offering could avail to close the gulf, 
but that must be the main source of all their strength. 
Men questioned what this offering could be, till Marcus 
Curtius a gallant soldier asked if any treasure could be 
more precious to the State than the arms and valour of 
her children, and as he spoke he stretched his hands 



v.] MILITARY PROGRESS. 53 

aloft in prayer to the deities in heaven, and then turned 
them downwards to the powers of the nether world ; 
that done he spurred the horse on which he rode, and 
with one great plunge he launched himself into the 
yawning chasm, which closed over him for ever, while 
the populace was strewing its thank-offerings and fruits 
upon his heaving grave, on the spot which was called 
the Lacus Curtius in later ages. 

Military progress.— There were few matters now 
at issue to disturb the harmony between the orders, 
and the military history exhibits the strength of the 
union thus secured. The career of conquest hitherto 
had been very slow and gradual, and few even of 
Rome's nearest neighbours were decisively subdued. 
But now instead of border forays we begin to hear of 
great wars undertaken ; distinct armies operate in con- 
cert instead of the old desultory movements, race after 
race is beaten down, until within seventy years the 
whole of Central Italy is hers, and she takes rank already 
as one of the great Powers of the world. At the be- 
ginning of the period there were still occasional rumours 
of a ' Gallic tumult:' such was the name they gave to 
the excitement caused by the invaders from the North : 
roving bands made their appearance now and then in 
the neighbourhood of Rome, and national pride dwelt 
fondly on the laurels won in single combat by the 
heroes, like T. Manlius Torquatus, who gained a sur- 
name from the collar stripped from the body of the 
fallen Gaul, or like Valerius Corvus, who struck his 
foeman to the ground, thanks to the friendly crow 
which blinded his opponent in the hour of need. 
Greek corsairs even scoured the neighbouring seas, 
and once at least they landed on the coast of Latium, 
and made good their footing for a while against the 
natives, till at last they were beaten back upon their 
ships. None knew whence or how they came, though 
Livy thinks they must have been the navy of some 
Sicilian tyrant else unknown. 

Discontent of the Latin League. — There was 
grave danger also from an unexpected quarter. For 



54 LIVY. [chap. 

more than a century the league of Latin towns had 
been faithful to their old alliance, and their soldiers 
had served in the wars beside the legions. They had 
borne the brunt of the attacks from the untiring 
enemies of the Aequian highlands and the Volscian 
lowlands, who could only join hands and strike at 
Rome through them. The frequent wars had left 
behind a fiery track of pillaged homesteads, and the 
thunder-cloud had often burst on them while it spared 
their powerful neighbour. They found themselves 
growing weaker, while Rome was gaining strength and 
profiting by the wars from which they suffered. No 
wonder that they grew impatient, and when Rome 
was struck down by the Gauls there was a restless stir 
of self-assertion in the plain of Latium, and some of the 
stronger cities drew themselves visibly aloof and talked 
of snapping the old ties for ever. News came to 
Rome that Latin deputies had met at the old trysting- 
place in the grove of Ferentina, and that they would 
send no soldiers to fight any more beside the legions. 
They would keep their forces for their own defence, 
and the proud city must take a humbler tone if she 
wished to have their help. But they were slow to 
move or to combine, and ere they knew it, the oppor- 
tunity had passed away. The chance was given by 
Rome's first war with the Samnites. 

The Samnites. — These highlanders of Central Italy 
were the proudest and most resolute of the men of the 
Sabellian stock, which had pushed gradually southward 
along the main ridge of the Apennines and spread 
under various names through the rugged mountain 
valleys from Sabinum almost to the Straits of Sicily. 
They clung for the most part to the rude habits of their 
simple life as shepherds and husbandmen, cherishing 
the primitive independence of their cantons, which they 
quitted only as their population outgrew its narrow limits, 
and fresh swarms went forth to right and left to find new 
homes. These poured over the inland valleys till they 
came into contact with the Etruscans in Campania and 
the Greek settlers on the southern coast, among whom 



v.J THE FIRST SAMNITE WAR. 55 

they sometimes lorded it as masters, while others sold 
their swords as soldiers of fortune to the highest bidder. 
The various branches of this wide-spread stock were 
only larger or smaller groups of scattered townships, 
bound to each other by a loose federal tie, with no vivid 
sense of national unity, rallying at times together for a 
strong spasmodic effort, which jarring interests rendered 
commonly shortlived 'or futile. One branch alone, the 
Samnites, seemed capable of fixed aims and organised 
coherence. Strongly intrenched already in their cen- 
tral highlands they exerted a powerful influence on the 
kindred races, as also on the mixed people, Etruscan, 
Greek, Sabellian, which occupied the fertile regions of 
Campania. They barred therefore Rome's progress 
southward, and she could only extend her frontiers at 
their expense. The cause of the strife between them 
is not far to seek. It began perhaps, as Livy tells us, 
in a dispute for ascendancy in the rich Campanian 
plains, but it ended in a struggle for existence. 

Origin of the First Samnite War, B.C. 343. — 
The lowlanders of Capua had rashly meddled in a 
quarrel on their borders, and brought upon themselves 
the vengeance of the Samnites. They found themselves 
too weak not only to protect their neighbours, but even 
to defend their city into which they were driven in 
confusion. They sent messages in haste to Rome to 
beg for succour, but the Senate felt that it was bound 
by treaty not to take part in the struggle, and could 
not stir without a breach of faith. Then the envoys, 
acting on instructions given, made over by a formal 
act their city, lands, and all they had to Rome, and 
bade them deal as they would with what was now their 
own. The senators were moved to see a people once 
so potent brought to such a piteous plight, they were 
strongly tempted with the ofTer of the wealthy city with 
its rich domains, and sophistry might plead that no 
treaty could bar the natural right to protect what had 
already passed into their hands. They closed there- 
fore with the offer and sent at once to the besiegers' 
camp to tell them what had taken place, and to warn 



56 LIVY. [chap. 

them that the subjects of Rome must be respected. 
The Samnites on their side were in no mood to be 
baulked of their prey without a struggle : they set at 
naught the idle claim and flung defiance in the teeth 
of Rome. The contest for the mastery was sharp and 
short. The general Valerius, whose surname Corvus 
recalled the legend of the heaven-sent crow, and who 
was popular as well as gallant, triumphed in a hard- 
fought battle near Mont Gaurus. The conquerors 
avowed that they had never met an enemy more 
worthy of their swords; the Samnites, brave as they 
were, gave way at last and fled by night, telling those 
who marvelled at their panic that the eyes of the 
Roman soldiers flashed with fire, and a strange frenzy 
gave them an unearthly force. The other consul 
marched meanwLle to attack the highlanders in their 
own valleys, but he nearly lost his army in the tangled 
country through which he rashly pushed his way, and 
was only rescued from the toils by the coolness and the 
daring of a military tribune, P. Decius Mus, thanks to 
whom a signal victory was gained. A third time they 
met in battle and with like result, and this brought the 
enemy soon afterwards to sue for peace, and shortly 
closed the first war against the Samnites. 

The* Mutiny among the Legions. — But one 
danger followed soon upon another. Ugly rumours 
soon were spreading that the Roman soldiers in Cam- 
pania were covetously eyeing the wealth and luxury 
around them, and were plotting to seize Capua for 
their own hand, to exchange their rude life for ease 
and plenty. The generals were prompt and wary, and 
recalled the ringleaders to Rome. But they stopped 
short upon the road, suspecting danger, till other 
malcontents could join them, and the mutiny could 
spread among the legions. They found a Quinctius of 
high birth in his country-house, and him they forced 
under pain of death to be their leader ; and soon they 
reached the city and were almost at the walls, when 
Valerius Corvus the veteran commander met them as an 
envoy from the Senate, and pleaded to their better feel- 



v.] THE LATIN WAR. 57 

ings, and won them back to discipline and honour. 
Their grievances were partially redressed, but Livy fails 
to throw much light upon their motives, or to connect 
them with the local causes of the outbreak. 

Outbreak of the Latin War, B.C. 340.— The 
mutiny and Samnite war were over, and the Latins 
were still wavering in an attitude that was neither 
one of peace nor war. But now that the thunder- 
cloud had rolled away and their rivals' hands were 
free once more, they began to talk in more defiant 
tones, claiming their liberty of independent action; 
and encouraged by appeal made to them from Cam- 
pania they armed without waiting for Rome's sanction, 
and at last venturing to send in their ultimatum. In- 
stead of the old federal equality they claimed to have 
corporate fusion. There should be one central govern- 
ment, they urged, in which one consul and half the 
Senate should be Latin. Just as these demands might 
be in theory, they were far more than the old Roman 
pride could brook. To the consul of the year, Tor- 
quatus, they seemed too monstrous to be spoken of 
with patience. He would resist them to the last, he 
vowed, even if he stood alone, and would strike down 
with his own hand any Latin who dared to take his 
seat among the Senate. The sovereign deity of Rome 
would surely resent an intrusion so profane into his 
presence. But then, so ran the story dear to pre- 
judiced ears, the Latin envoy, Annius, mocked in 
bold defiance of the wrath of heaven, and straight- 
way, as in answer, came the crash of thunder, and 
men saw the lifeless form of Annius falling down 
the marble steps of the temple in which the Senate 
met. The long smouldering fire burst out at once, 
and it remained only to appeal to the decision of the 
sword. They prepared for strife in solemn earnest, 
for each knew the temper of the other, and was little 
tempted to despise his foe. Their soldiers had served 
as comrades side by side on many a hard-fought field ; 
their discipline and tactics were the same ; their kins- 
men had settled together as colonists on the land their 



58 LIVY. [cliap. 

arms had won; and the coming conflict must have 
seemed to them like civil war. The generals chosen 
for the crisis were of the sternest military type, and the 
stories told of them in later ages showed how strong 
was the supposed need of discipline, and how much 
was thought to hang on the issue of the strife. 

Manlius as a type of military discipline. — 
While the armies faced each other in their camps all 
single combats were forbidden by Manlius the consul. 
His son alone forgot himself and, fired by the insult of 
a challenge, fought and slew his man. He brought 
back his spoils in triumph, but his father turned his 
eyes away as he drew near, spoke briefly of the breach 
of discipline, the penalty of which was death, and, like 
another Brutus, bade the ministers of justice do their 
duty. 

The self-devotion of P. Decius Mus. — Men spoke 
with admiring horror of the father's deed; but they 
had reason to be proud of their other genera], 
P. Decius Mus. His was the far happier lot, for duty 
called him only to sacrifice himself. When the crash 
of battle came under Vesuvius he heard from the 
sacrificing priest what the portents seemed to point to 
as the will of heaven. Then calmly and cheerfully he 
bade the priest repeat the solemn ceremonial forms, 
and vowed his life as a peace-offering to the powers of 
earth, to win if might be victory for Rome. That 
done he plunged into the thickest ranks and fell covered 
with the wounds he seemed .to court. The soldiers' 
valour or the general's death decided the fortunes of 
the day, and the Latins, bravely as they fought, were 
routed with great loss. They made one more ineffec- 
tual stand, and then submitted to their old ally. The 
federal league was broken up ; the ties of intercourse 
were rudely snapped, and each town, isolated from the 
rest, was brought into direct dependence upon Rome, 
with varying degrees of privilege and right. In one 
case, that of Antium, a new colony was sent to guard 
the coast, and the beaks of the war-galleys in which 
the strength of Antium lay were brought to Rome to 



v.] THE LATIN WAR. 59 

deck the raised platform in the Forum from which the 
statesmen and the magistrates addressed the people, 
and which gained the name of Rostra from these 
trophies. 

Suspicious features of the story of the War. — 
Such is the account we find in Livy of the downfall of 
the old Latin league, and we may accept the more 
important data as to the cause of the struggle and its 
main results. There are indeed features of the story 
more picturesque than credible, and as such preferred 
probably by our historian for their imaginative or 
moral value. The anecdotes connected with the name 
and character of Manlius are of a sort often found 
in slightly different forms elsewhere, the self-devotion 
of the Decius is repeated in another generation of the 
same family; other accounts, resting on authority as 
good, wholly ignore the battle near Vesuvius, and date 
the crowning victory of the war from a later conflict 
hastily dismissed by Livy. There is reason enough 
to feel assured that we have not reached as yet firm 
ground of solid fact, and that scanty data from 
official records have been dressed up in a later age 
with typical anecdotes and fanciful descriptions. 

The treatment of Privernum. — The story of 
another struggle comes probably from a like source 
and lived in popular fancy before it found a place in 
books. Privernum, a little stronghold upon the Vol- 
scian frontier, had twice defied the power of Rome, 
and twice been taken. Once more it rose in arms 
with like result, and then the Senate sat in council to 
decide the fate of the rebellious city. Ere the debate 
began they asked the envoy from Privernum what 
punishment he thought his countrymen deserved. 
* Such treatment/ were his words, ' as they deserve 
who feel that they are fit for freedom.' Then the 
consul asked again how long they would keep the 
peace if Rome were willing to show mercy. ' If you 
offer good terms/ was the answer, c you will have firm 
and lasting peace, but if the terms be hard, we shall 
not long observe them/ The senators heard the bold 



60 LIVY. [chap. 

words with respect, declaring that men of such a spirit 
should be Roman, and they gave without delay the 
rights of the franchise to Privernum. A like tale is 
repeated by another writer, but not referred to the 
same date. 

Origin of Second Samnite War, B.C. 327.— The 
conquering Republic had little breathing space from 
war allowed her, for her formidable rivals in the South 
were once more upon the move. They had bitterly 
resented a fortress built on the upper Liris at Fregellae, 
in the country which they claimed to hold by right of 
conquest, and which commanded one of the great 
roads from Latium to the South. On their side they 
used influence over the mixed race upon the coast, 
and stirred intrigues against the power of Rome in the 
Greek cities of Campania. It was left only to appeal 
to the decision of the sword, and war began again 
between them in 326 b.c. At first the success of 
Rome was rapid. The presumptuous city, variously 
called the Old (Palaepolis) or New (Neapolis), was 
surrendered either by treachery or fear, and in Sam- 
nium itself the legions marched to and fro, till 
repeated victories made the enemy humbly sue for 
peace. 

The dictator and his master of horse. — One 
campaign above all others was remembered for its 
bearing on the rigour of Roman discipline and the 
temper of the generals. The dictator L. Papirius 
Cursor, when called away on some religious duty to 
the city, left strict orders with his master of the horse, 
Q. Fabius Rullianus, not to risk a battle in his absence. 
But Fabius was venturesome and lucky, and sent a 
despatch to tell of his success, not to his general, but 
to the Senate. The dictator hastened to the camp to 
avenge the signal breach of discipline, for which the 
penalty w r as death. But the culprit was rescued by the 
soldiers and escaped to Rome, still pursued by his 
indignant chief, who would grant no pardon even 
when the Senate asked for mercy. At last the tribunes 
interposed in pity for a father s prayers. As they had 



v.] THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR. 61 

no right to bar the course of martial law, they begged 
Papirius to spare his life, and at last wrung from him 
his consent. The soldiers in the camp had little relish 
for such antique rigour, and fought with little zeal, for 
they grudged their general the laurels of a triumph. 
But he set himself to win their love by courtesy and 
gallant bearing, and that secured, it was an easy matter 
for him to gain great successes in the field. But Rome 
was too elated with her fortune to offer peace on 
reasonable terms ; a great reverse was soon to follow, 
and her pride was to be humbled almost to the dust. 

The Caudine Forks. — The disaster of the Cau- 
dine Forks — a defile between Campania and Samnium 
— left a vivid impress on the national memory, for it 
was there that the legions were enclosed as in a trap 
and forced to an ignominious surrender. The enemies 
themselves, we read, startled at such unheard-of fortune, 
sent in haste to ask Herennius Pontius, the aged father 
of their general, how they should act in such a crisis. 
His answer was that they should let them all go freely 
forth unhurt, and so appeal to all their best and 
warmest feelings ; or failing that, put them all without 
distinction to the sword, that the loss might cripple the 
State for many a year. There was no safe course, he 
said, between the two extremes. Yet the Samnites 
tried to find one. They made their prisoners lay down 
their arms, and pass under the yoke, each with a 
single garment only, while the officers of highest rank 
bound themselves as sponsors for a treaty which was 
to free the soil of Samnium from the arms and colonies 
of Rome, and leave the rivals fairly balanced as before. 
But Rome was in no mood to ratify such terms. The 
general Posthumius, who had just signed the contract, 
was the first to raise his voice against it in the Senate, 
and to vote that the State should disown the act, sur- 
rendering him and others who had given their sanction 
to the treaty. The advice was acted on without delay, 
the Samnites protesting, but in vain. They had lost 
the solid fruits of victory, but they were too high- 
minded to wreak their vengeance in cold blood, and 



62 LIVY. [chap. 

they sent back the scapegoats to their camp, sorely 
though they suffered for their idle confidence in 
Roman honour. They soon found to their cost that 
the aged Pontius had warned them truly, for the 
legions were once more upon the march against them, 
eager to wipe out the memory of their disgrace, and 
to prove in a fair field their ancient valour. Two 
consular armies moved towards the South, and the 
successes which they won balanced the memory of the 
great disaster. 

Livy's picturesque treatment. — In describing 
the events which have been just sketched the narrative 
of Livy exhibits a high degree of literary skill, and is 
full of variety and animated scenes : he recounts in 
picturesque style the humiliation of the conquered 
army, the San-mites' generous weakness in catching at 
the hopes of peace and trusting to a captive's word, 
the Senate's sophistry and Rome's tarnished honour, 
in receiving her prisoners of war and casting their 
pledges to the winds. 

Want of method in dealing with the War. — In 
the remaining period of the war there is many a 
brilliant page in which full justice has been done to 
the pertinacity and valour of the combatants on either 
side, but the interest is dispersed over a long series of 
campaigns, which are recorded year by year in such 
detail that we lose all sense of order and of definite 
progress, and only gather incidentally some of the 
most important data. 

The re-appointment of the dictator Papirius 
Cursor. — We have indeed a graphic picture of the 
struggle in the breast of the consul Fabius between 
personal rancour and a sense of duty to his country. 
His colleague was far away and hard pressed by the 
enemy; the Senate would have a dictator, Papirius 
must be the man, and Fabius, so ancient custom ruled 
it, must himself appoint the stern martinet who had 
once pursued him so relentlessly. It was a hard thing 
to forget the past, but public spirit was intensely 
strong, and at dead of night the consul rose alone, and 



v.] THE SECOND SAMN1TE WAR. 63 

spoke the solemn form of words by which the chief 
magistrate resigned all the powers of the State into the 
hands of a dictator. The leader named at such a 
sacrifice of personal feeling proved himself worthy of 
the Senate's trust. He won a victory which was long 
remembered, for the Samnite shields embossed with 
gold and silver were hung up as trophies in the Forum, 
and ages afterwards, in days of triumph, the decora- 
tions of that time were copied by the Aediles. 

No clear account of the policy of the War. — 
We must not look to Livy for any general account of 
the forces of the warring powers or of the causes of 
the final issue. He gives no explanation of the 
advantages which Rome enjoyed in her organised 
unity and central strength supported by the ready 
obedience of her subject peoples, as compared with 
the Samnite league of independent townships, any of 
which might lose heart in the hour of danger and 
desert the common cause. The colonial settlements 
made during the war are mentioned in his pages, but 
scarce a word is given to show that these frontier 
garrisons were a main part of the military policy of 
Rome, holding down as they did with a grip of iron 
every inch of ground that had been won, while they 
contented on the other hand the needs of the im- 
poverished yeomen who were looking for new homes. 
We may see, if we look with care, how steadily the 
great roads were pushed on Southwards, secured by 
one stronghold after another, dismembering the hostile 
states, and leaving a watch-tower on every dangerous 
border, till the clutch of Rome seemed to be riveted at 
last on the central highlands and resistance to have 
wholly died away. But the historian tells us little of 
the policy which Rome adopted, and we only gather 
from the number of the conquered forts and from the 
ease with which the legions made their way that the 
end was near at hand. Even then there seemed a 
ray of hope when Etruria stepped into the fray, and 
distracted the attention of the conquering Republic. 
But she was soon defeated, and the general Fabius 



64 LIVY. [chap. v. 

was not contented with routing her forces in the field. 
Rome woke with a strange panic when she heard that 
the consul had followed in pursuit, and was lost awhile 
to sight behind the dark Ciminian Forest, which had 
been as yet the limit of their progress to the North. 
But while ignorant fancy magnified the danger, Fabius 
was pushing on, and his successes showed the weak- 
ness of the Etrurian cities, and forced them soon to 
sue for peace. Samnium in her turn thus left alone, 
was at last humbled to submission, b.c. 304. 

The Third Samnite War, B.C. 298. — But there 
could be no lasting peace between the rivals till one 
of the two was quite exhausted, and Rome speedily 
had cause to fear that the Samnites were still strong 
enough to annex the regions of Lucania and dispute 
the mastery of Southern Italy. She decided to act 
while there was still time, and her insolent message 
to them to be still, roused them to arms again in a 
Third Samnite War. The legions under veteran 
leaders swept again through Central Italy, and carried 
all before them where they marched : but even then, 
when all seemed hopeless, a last effort was made ; 
alien races which had never yet combined found links 
of union in the hatred of a common foe : North and 
South; Gauls, Etruscans, Samnites joined hands in 
their despair to strike a final blow for freedom. But 
the hour had passed for all such hopes, and the great 
Republic, which in weaker days had by the good 
favour of Fortune been able to cope with her rivals 
one by one, was now in her hour of strength powerful 
enough to crush the united force of the allies in the 
battle of Sentinum, where a second Decius died to 
save his country after solemn forms of self-devotion 
like those recorded in the Latin war. The Samnites 
struggled on a few years longer, till at last they sullenly 
submitted, and Rome became Mistress of Italy, which 
she ruled henceforth without a rival. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CRITICISM OF LIVY'S METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE. 

Progress at home and abroad. — We have now 
reached the close of the first decade, and we may stay 
to note in general terms some of the characteristic 
features of Livy's treatment of his subject. In the 
period comprised in it we trace the progress and 
completion of two momentous changes: one a work 
of diplomacy and war by which Rome passed into the 
sovereign state of Italy; the other a process of con- 
stitutional reform by which the patricians and plebs 
ceased to be rival orders and were fused in perfect 
union. Civil development went gradually forward 
even while the work of war was going on and the 
frontiers were constantly pushed further. 

Livy's omissions in military matters. — The 
military side is treated at great length by Livy. Year 
after year we seem to hear the tramp of the legions 
and the din of battle, but it must be owned that there 
is often a signal want of logical order and of clearness 
in bringing out to view the moving forces and the main 
results. In geographical description the outlines are 
all vague and shadowy; the scenes of the campaign 
are rarely figured to our fancy with the help of minute 
and circumstantial touches. We are always hearing 
of Etruscans, Aequians, Volscians, and Samnites, but 
there is no opening sketch of the definite position, 
antecedents or political condition of each people, nor 
any general estimate of their strength or of the causes 
of decline. In purely military matters there is indeed 



66 LIVY. [chap. 

an antiquarian account of the formation of the legion, 
but the real problem is left quite untouched as to the 
secret of Rome's success in war, and the main causes 
of her conquering progress. Once indeed he seems 
tempted for a moment to deal in earnest with the 
question. He looks beyond the bounded range of 
Italian politics to think what might have been the issue 
if the phalanx of Alexander had been marshalled by 
his genius against the legions, and East and West had 
been brought so early into conflict. But he deals only 
with the surface of the problem, and does not study 
or compare the tactics and the discipline of ancient 
states, or show how the faulty generalship of the 
commanders, changing as they did from year to year, 
was saved often from disaster only by the steady valour 
of the militia troops of Rome. 

Constitutional questions. — In his treatment of 
the great constitutional changes there are signal merits 
balanced by great defects. The debates between the 
Orders are brought before our fancy with dramatic 
power; the abstract principles at issue are fired and 
coloured with party passions ; the hopes and fears of 
either side, the logic of their rival claims translated into 
lively rhetoric, appear vividly before us in a series of 
impressive speeches, in which the writer clothes his 
theories of political causation. The actual struggles 
in the city when laws are to be passed or magistrates 
elected are described as fully as the movements of the 
armies on the battle-field. But in both cases alike the 
pictures are too disconnected, and there is too little 
sense of law and order to give meaning and pro- 
portion to the whole. It may be doubted even 
whether Livy had clear ideas about the early con- 
stitution. Certainly he leaves important questions 
unexplained. Political terms are not defined ; and as 
the starting-points are never clearly stated, the exact 
nature of the change is often left obscure. It may be 
well to justify the charge by some examples. 

No clear ideas of early society. — First there is 
no attempt to realise the primitive structure of society 



vi.] LIVY' METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE. 67 

before the family or patriarchal clan expanded to the 
tribe*, and tribes coalesced to form a state. The clans 
(gen/es, curiae) were powerful units, ruled by their own 
headmen, observing their own customs, and free in a 
large measure from any state control. Traces of early 
usage lingered on in the patria potesias, or the father's 
despotic rule, in forms of marriage, in the domestic 
council, in the rights of property, and in the separate 
character of family worship. Livy does not gather up 
these hints, or discuss in any way the early law, or 
explain by what expedients Rome succeeded better 
than her neighbours in fusing these separate and often 
jarring atoms into one strong organic whole. 

The clients. — Closely related to the old families 
were the clients or retainers, bound not by contract but 
by hereditary ties to do service to their patrons such as 
law or usage could enforce, and which grew perhaps 
out of mild forms of old domestic slavery. But Livy 
tells us nothing of their status or their origin. He 
throws as little light upon the more important order of 
the plebs, spoken of as already in existence in the 
regal period, but which grew up outside the privileged 
clans as alien elements were drawn to them, we know 
not definitely how. 

The plebs. — The plebs was barely tolerated at the 
first, and had few rights or scant power to enforce 
them. Its attempt to rise began almost in a struggle 
for existence, but it ended in complete self-assertion 
and equality. The tribunes were its champions in 
the struggle, and the power of veto was their engine 
of offence. But when was this privilege conceded, or 
how did it grow to such dimensions? Not a word 
does Livy give to solve the problem. It may be that 
their right was limited at first to the power to screen 
any member of their order from attack, or to protect 
him from patrician magistrates. But the threat to use 
the power was soon effective. Laws, elections, reso- 
lutions of the Senate were of no avail, if the tribunes 
would not sanction what was done or allow the law to 
be applied when any plebeian was in question. So 



68 LIVY. [chap. 

the veto, if made thorough-going, might bring all 
public business to a standstill. * 

The comitia. — Nor is there any definite explanation 
given of the origin of the various National Assemblies, 
or of their relation to each other. Of the centuriate 
or Servian comitia we read indeed that it was organised 
to be an army in the field, and a legislative body in 
the city, so arranged that the voting power should be 
mainly in the hands of the substantial classes. But 
the Assembly of the Tribes (Comitia Tributa) comes 
into life unnoticed. Yet, strange to say, we find that 
ere long patricians are arraigned before it by the 
tribunes and submit to take their trial, and at last, 
when the equality of the Orders is secured, its reso- 
lutions gain the force of law, though not without a 
struggle, for the sanction was three times re-enacted. 
It is probable enough that the plebs first held in- 
formal meetings to discuss its interests, and voted 
through the machinery of the tribes ; and that as they 
felt the power of organised numbers they ventured to 
usurp the right of trying the worst enemies of their 
own order by a sort of formalised lynch-law, as it has 
been called, and that as time went on, and patricians 
took their places and voted in the tribes, they claimed 
a legislative power, untrammeled in theory at least by 
the sanction of the Senate. But all this is only in- 
ference from the meagre data found in ancient writers, 
and Livy has not thought the subject of sufficient 
interest to discuss it, or even to form any distinct 
conception for himself. Of course an historian does 
not write in the first place for future ages, but for the 
men and women of his own day, and they are often 
too familiar with the forms of their own social life 
to need detailed description of them all. But the 
machinery in question had in great measure ceased to 
act in Livy's time ; its arrangements had been altered 
long before, some of its functions had been changed, 
and an ancient reader without more special help would 
not have understood these early matters better than 
ourselves. It is therefore a capital defect in Livy's 



vi.] LIVYS METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE. 69 

treatment that he should deal at such great length with 
many of the stages of the struggle between the Orders, 
and yet leave primary questions so obscure, without a 
word to excuse or to deplore the fact. 

The early religion. — There is another side of 
national life which he leaves also unexplained. We 
might read him carefully and yet gain no idea that 
there was any difference of note between the religious 
thought of Greece and Rome. In the Augustan age 
indeed all distinctive features were effaced. Hellenic 
culture had given a form to the language of the 
educated world, and the deities worshipped in the 
Roman temples were supposed to be the same as the 
members of the Greek Pantheon, though slightly dis- 
guised under their Latin names. But such had not 
been the primitive religion of the Italian peoples before 
the exotic fancies of the poets had overlaid with their 
luxuriant growth the native products of the Latin 
mind. For information on such questions we must 
turn to antiquarian writers who give us the rude 
phrases of the ancient liturgies, handed down with 
scrupulous care by priestly hands, and stored in the 
archives of the Sacred Colleges. Many of such books 
of ritual were preserved at the end of the Republic, 
and it only needed a little interest and leisure to 
picture to the fancy by their help much of the religious 
life of early days. Had Livy only had an interest in 
such studies he might have shown us how the Roman 
husbandman analysed by cool reflection all the pro- 
cesses of common work and daily life, and at every 
stage worshipped some mysterious power of Nature 
which might influence his destiny for weal or woe. 
The names he gave them were uncouth, answering in 
meaning to the process of husbandry, or the mood of 
nature, or the fragment of domestic work of which he 
thought. There was little in their qualities to stir the 
fancy of the poet, or give birth to a mythology, for 
they sounded only like the sexless deities of abstract 
reason, wholly different from the fantastic shapes that 
were dreamed of on Olympus. But they were the 



7© LIVV. [chap. 

real growth of the Italian thought, and as such they 
were still believed in and still worshipped in the home- 
steads of the farmers, long after they had been for- 
gotten by the dwellers in the cities, familiar only with 
the religious language of the fashionable world. Livy 
does not write indeed in any frivolous or irreligious 
spirit. Rather he has a strong respect for the earnest 
piety of earlier ages, and sorrows deeply over the 
degradation of his own unbelieving times. It may 
seem strange therefore that in collecting materials for 
his great work, he should not have come into contact 
with such data, or have reproduced them in his pages. 
This may lead us to inquire a little deeper into the 
nature of his historic studies, and to determine as we 
may what were the authorities that he consulted and 
the evidences on which he could rely. 

The earlier annalists. — There can be no doubt 
that the earliest prose-writers who dealt with Roman 
history in any literary form were Fabius Pictor and 
Cincius Alimentus, both of whom took part in public 
life during the Second Punic War, almost a century, 
that is, after the last events which the first decade 
comprises. Even these did not write in Latin, which 
was then too rugged and unformed for the tastes of 
men of letters, but they naturally chose Greek, which 
was in their time the language of the cultivated world. 
Their interest lay chiefly in the events of their own 
days, where they were witnesses as well as agents, but 
they also wrote a summary sketch of the remoter past 
as a preface to the fuller history of their own times. 
They were followed by a long series of authors known 
to us by name, who wrote of the earlier as w^ell as 
of the later ages, who thought more indeed as time 
went on of the graces of style and rules of rhetoric, 
but had no more special claim to deep historic 
insight. These are the annalists whom Livy followed, 
whom he often cites, though sometimes perhaps at 
second-hand, who seem to have agreed in the main 
features of their narrative, though they often differed 
about matters of detail. But the earliest of these 



vi.] LIVY'S METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE. 71 

were far removed from the period of which they wrote, 
and it is important to inquire what materials lay ready 
to their hand for the history of by-gone ages. 

The official chronicles. — The most authentic 
and complete of these seem to have consisted of 
the records kept from year to year by the Supreme 
Pontiff, and at first published by him on a whitened 
tablet that all might read the National Calendar, then 
collected in a lengthy digest, and stored with due care 
in the archives. We are told indeed that the fire and 
havoc of the Gauls swept away all such memorials. 
In succeeding years however the records seem to have 
been kept with greater fulness, as the use of writing 
spread more widely; but the main facts of public life 
were barely stated, without a trace of literary style or 
comment, but with disproportionate space perhaps for 
the fasts and festivals, portents and eclipses, which 
concerned the priests most nearly. This dry and 
scanty chronicle was the starting-point of Roman 
history, and its meagre outlines were filled out by the 
fancy of the later writers, with the help no doubt of 
other data. Whether Livy referred to it himself or 
not we cannot say, for the information which is drawn 
from it in his pages may have been taken at second- 
hand from other sources, and the term a?i?ia!es which 
he often uses was applied indifferently to the official 
record and the enlargements of the men of letters. 

Precedents and formularies. — There were other 
materials besides collected by the pontiffs and the 
remaining priestly guilds — liturgies of prayer, with 
which alone it was thought safe for worshippers to 
approach the power of heaven, formularies which 
prescribed the ceremonial acts to be scrupulously 
observed, precedents followed in all important cases. 
For the Roman mind was intensely conservative in all 
such matters ; its religion did not make appeal to 
moral feelings or to spiritual cravings, but was a thing 
of forms and ceremonies and symbolic acts, and for 
these the priests required the help of an elaborate 
ritual preserved from one generation to another 
4 



7a LIVY. [chap. 

Primitive religion was closely intertwined with many 
sides of national life. Every important change left its 
traces in the ritual, or was associated with some 
venerable usage. Some of these formularies are 
embedded in the narrative of Livy, but we have no 
reason to believe that he gleaned them for himself, or 
ever explored the Record Office of the priests. Such 
data had perhaps little power to stir his fancy, nor did 
he see their value in helping us to picture fully to our 
thoughts the national life of far-off times. 

Monumental data. — He seems to have found as 
little interest in the monumental evidence which lay 
around him in abundance. The ancients did not 
entrust the documents of State to paper or to parch- 
ment, or to anything less durable than bronze or stone. 
Laws, treaties, proclamations, resolutions of the Senate, 
dedications to the gods, epitaphs upon the tombs, — 
these were to be found in every public place or temple, 
and formed a constantly increasing store in spite of 
the ravages of decay and fire. Not in Rome only, 
but in every town of Italy such evidence lay ready to 
the hand of those who would try to reconstruct the 
past in fancy. From time to time reference is made 
by Livy to such data, and he speaks with respect of 
Cincius as versed in antiquarian lore. But his quota- 
tions are confessedly at second-hand. He had no 
mind to endanger his fine style by much reading of 
the crabbed stuff engraved on the old marbles ; he had 
no leisure to pore over the archives to correct a name 
or date, still less to wander through the land in search 
of more antiquities. It was easier far to turn to a 
Valerius Antias or Licinius Macer, annalists nearest to 
his time, and accept in the main their version of the 
facts, though startled now and then by inconsistencies 
or prodigious numbers. 

Family documents. — Besides the official docu- 
ments already mentioned, there were many others 
doubtless to be gleaned from the chests of the ruling 
families of Rome. No people ever was more scrupu- 
lous in keeping its accounts; none carried out more 



vi.] LIVY'S METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE. 73 

thoroughly the principle of book-keeping in private 
life. The magistrates of course were as careful in 
the business of State, but they carried to their homes 
in earlier ages all their registers when their official 
work was over. These were sometimes no doubt an 
easy prey for moths or damp, but often they were 
scrupulously guarded as heirlooms among the proud 
memories of high estate. With these were kept the 
funeral notices of the illustrious dead, which have been 
spoken of above, and sometimes the speeches even 
pronounced by them on great occasions in the Senate 
or before the people. Out of these and the traditions 
associated with old names it was easy in later times 
for men of letters or their educated clients to construct 
the family chronicles which served to illustrate the 
ancestral busts that lined their walls, or to train the 
younger members of the house in due respect for the 
great qualities of their forefathers. It is in this way 
probably that we may best explain the fact that at 
certain periods a single family, such as the Fabian, 
Claudian, or Quinctian house, seems to appear almost 
alone upon the stage, and to decide the fortunes of 
the State. Nothing could be more natural if the 
pedigrees and chronicles of the ruling houses were 
pieced together to eke out the fragmentary data drawn 
from other sources. It must be owned indeed that 
these are matters of conjecture, but it is hard else to 
understand why the narrative becomes at times so full 
and circumstantial, and then again, as the scene shifts, 
the outlines are so shadowy and indistinct. In a 
society that grew out of a union of clans and tribes 
traditions would concentrate themselves within the 
closer bodies, and be guarded jealously as an exclusive 
right. 

Original sources probably were little used. — But 
it is impossible to say how far the genuine traditions 
may have been disfigured by fanciful embellishments 
and marvellous details, the spontaneous growth of the 
imagination, or the work of literary clients catering for 
the pride and vanity of wealthy patrons. Ancient' 



74 LIVY. [chap. vi. 

writers seldom refer in any but a vague and general 
way to the sources from which they draw ; and though 
Livy complains of such distortions of the truth, we 
cannot tell whether he made any effort to sift or verify 
these data for himself. The earlier annalists indeed 
he often names, and balances conflicting statements, 
accepting commonly what seemed to rest on the 
evidence of most or of the oldest writers. But he 
does not often travel further back, to confront the 
historians and their proofs, or to construct any critical 
methods of inquiry. Certainly there is much in the 
first decade which can rest on no solid basis of con- 
temporary proof, much that seems like an afterthought 
of recent fancy challenged to account for an old name 
or phrase or usage, much commonplace rhetoric that 
offends us by its lengthy speeches in debate, and its 
descriptions of battles, sieges, acts of personal prowess 
as minute as if the armies of antiquity had had their 
special correspondents in their camp, and reporters 
for the journals were always sitting in the Senate. 

The Roman character was conservative. — Yet 
still we must remember that the Roman genius was 
essentially methodical and formal, appealing constantly 
to precedents, tenacious of established rules and phrases, 
sure to call at an early stage for text-books and 
authoritative records. The civil progress of the past 
w r as marked in its chief stages by the constitutional 
language of the present; the great victories won in 
the struggle for equality were the proud memories of 
the plebs and part of the charter of their freedom; 
and while we trace the slow and orderly development 
of the Republic both in the forum and the field we 
feel that we are treading on the firm ground of solid 
fact. And if we are sometimes impatient of the length 
at which he deals with the more questionable features 
of his story, we shall do well to remember that four 
hundred and fifty years are disposed of in a single 
decade, while the three hundred that followed spread 
over nearly half as many books. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE LOST DECADE, WITH ITS ACCOUNTS OF PYRRHUS 
AND OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 

Few relations so far between Rome and 
Greece. — The first decade of Livy deals in a great 
measure with ages so remote, that we find it hard to 
understand how the narrative is often full of minute 
and circumstantial data. Unluckily his pages fail us 
as we near the times for which contemporary records 
were of easier access. The second decade has been 
lost, and the writer's guidance is therefore wanting for 
a period of seventy years, early in which the name of 
Rome was heard far beyond the bounds of Italy, and 
passed into the history of neighbouring nations. She 
had lived as yet her. separate life apart, scarcely heeded 
by the older civilisations of the world. In legendary 
times indeed we read of envoys sent from her to con- 
sult the oracle at Delphi, or to gather in Greek cities 
the materials for the Code of the Twelve Tables, but 
these may probably have been the afterthoughts of 
later writers anxious to account for much that seemed 
borrowed from Hellenic sources, and there were but 
few fixed points of definite contact to bring into close 
relation the histories of neighbouring countries. The 
capture of the city by the Gauls and the decisive 
battle of Sentinum found an echo in the pages of 
Greek writers; and in return the attention of the 
Romans had been drawn to the movements of the 
Greek adventurers who appeared from time to time in 
distant parts of Italy. 



76 LIVY. [chap. 

The Greek Pirates at Padua. — One such of 
unknown source had special interest for Livy, and he 
draws on the traditions of his earlier home when he 
tells us of the roving corsairs who pushed from the 
coast into the mainland, making havoc as they went, 
till the citizens of Patavium beat them off, and set up 
their spoils in public as a memorial of their prowess. 
But most of them grew out of the constant wars 
between Tarentum and her neighbours. That restless 
trading city, when hard pressed by the rude races on 
her borders, naturally looked across the seas to Greece, 
whence her Spartan emigrants had started to settle in 
their home in Italy. There was no lack of veterans 
and skilful generals there ready to answer to a call 
which promised "hard fighting and good pay. First 
came Alexander of Epirus, with the hope perhaps to 
conquer a fair kingdom in the West, as his nephew of 
Macedon was at the same time forming a new r empire 
in the East, but his career of conquest was speedily 
cut short by treachery and death. Then they turned 
to Cleonymus, of the ruling line of Sparta, but he soon 
passed away, leaving only a confused memory of rapine 
in his track. A new era began with the appearance of 
Pyrrhus on the scene, and from that time Greece and 
Rome could not ignore each other any more. 

Livy's accounts of Pyrrhus are lost. — Only 
meagre summaries are left us of the three books which 
dealt with the arrival and the doings of the brilliant 
adventurer who was thought to be the greatest warrior 
of his age. Livy's powers of vivid portraiture and 
dramatic treatment must have found ample scope in 
the description of the giddy people of Tarentum, who 
rushed into war with a light heart after unprovoked 
assault upon the ships of Rome, and wanton insult to 
the person of her envoy. The character of the knight- 
errant Pyrrhus doubtless caught his fancy, and we may 
believe that he also did ample justice to the startling 
effect produced upon the Roman mind by the scientific 
strategy of the great captain, and the ponderous me- 
chanism of the Macedonian phalanx. He would how- 



vii.] THE LOST DECADE. 77 

ever have described with fuller pleasure and with more 
detail the steady resolution with which the Romans 
faced defeat till they learned in the school of Pyrrhus 
how to conquer, and that fine scene in the Senate-hall 
when blind old Claudius came forth once more into 
public life to raise his voice in protest against any 
peace or truce with Pyrrhus, and pleaded with his 
countrymen to fight on to the bitter end while an 
alien remained in arms upon the soil of Italy. 

The First Punic War, B.C. 264. — The four books 
which followed would have proved a still more grievous 
loss, if the corresponding chapters of Polybius had not 
fortunately been preserved to give us in an authori- 
tative form the history of the First Punic Wat. The 
Greek historian was indeed inferior to Livy in many 
of the qualities of a literary artist. He had none of 
his pathos and brilliancy of style, none of his power 
to vivify the shifting scenes of the historic drama, or 
to transfuse passion into his words at will until the 
feelings and the interests of the past rise up as living 
beings before our kindling fancy. But to balance 
these shortcomings he had also signal merits which 
Livy could not always rival. Himself a statesman and 
diplomatist, he had a clearer insight into the political 
machinery of statecraft ; his wider travels taught him 
more of the peoples and governments of foreign lands ; 
he had severer canons of historic credibility, and could 
better disentangle the connected threads of causes and 
effects. His sketch therefore of the First Punic War 
is clear and orderly and comprehensive. We have not 
indeed from him such a gallery of historic portraits as 
Livy might have left us. He would have drawn with 
a freer hand the character of the rough soldier Regulus, 
sweeping all before him at the first upon the coast of 
Africa, till over-confident and weary of inaction he 
wrote to beg to be recalled upon the plea that his 
little glebe was being neglected by his farmer, but 
doomed only to return a prisoner on parole to bring 
terms of peace from Carthage and to urge his coun- 
trymen to spurn them. He would have left a vivid 



78 LIVY. [chap. vir. 

memory in the reader's mind of the Claudius who 
risked defeat with the headstrong daring of his race, 
and flung the sacred birds into the sea when the 
augurs told him that they would not eat, saying mock- 
ingly ' then let them drink/ — fit brother of the haughty 
dame who, when the crowd thronged round about in 
the streets, wished that he could lose another battle to 
rid the capital of its superfluous numbers. Roman as 
he was, Livy must have felt a genuine admiration of 
the great Hamilcar, who trained his motley levies into 
a gallant band of veterans with which he baffled for 
long years the efforts of the legions, and stood at bay 
at last in his rocky stronghold on the coast like a lion 
on whom the hunters dare not close. The language 
of Polybius is somewhat tame and commonplace in 
dealing with such themes, but he describes clearly for 
us the earlier relations between Rome and Carthage, 
and the immediate antecedents of the war in the 
struggle to secure for Rome first a foothold and then 
ascendancy in Sicily. The different periods of the 
conflict are well defined, as he was not hampered by 
the annalistic form like Livy, nor prone to overload 
his pages with rhetorical expansions. The main con- 
ditions therefore of the war stand out in strong relief. 
The superiority of the legions in the field, where their 
steadiness and weight shattered the loose array of mer- 
cenaries whom the merchant princes sent to do their 
fighting ; the energy with which Rome created a war- 
navy to dispute the mastery of the seas which her rival 
had long held ; the inventive skill which baffled the 
experience of Punic sailors, and locked the ships toge- 
ther for steady fighting as on solid land ; the resolution 
with which she bore the repeated blows of Fortune in 
the great reverse in Africa, and in the storms which 
wrecked her. fleets, till her patience was at last rewarded 
by success, and decisive victory closed the war — these 
are the chief outlines of a story which Livy may have 
pictured perhaps more vividly, but cannot have described 
more clearly. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 

Livy and Polybius drew from the same sources. 

— The third decade of Livy covers the period of the 
Second Punic War, for the opening years of which we 
have also the guidance of Polybius, and on comparing 
many passages of the two writers it may be seen that 
there is very close resemblance in their narratives, and 
that at times the agreement is too minute and circum- 
stantial to be due merely to the accurate description 
of the facts recorded. It has been therefore commonly 
supposed that the later historian borrowed freely from 
the earlier, though without acknowledging his debt, 
as often was the case with ancient writers. But on 
nearer scrutiny it may be seen that even in the 
passages where there is very close resemblance there 
are commonly some incidents in Livy's pages, which 
form distinct additions to the story of Polybius, 
and which therefore point to other literary sources. 
There are other passages which he hardly could have 
written, if the narrative of the Greek historian had 
been at the time under his eyes, as where he gives 
details which the latter had exposed already as ab- 
surdities or exaggerated tales. At a later period we 
know that he followed Polybius more closely, trails^ 
lating or abridging lengthy passages, without collating 
other sources, and with no such minute and numerous 
variations as have now to be accounted for. It seems 
therefore more probable that both used the same 
authorities, rather than that one borrowed from the 



8o L1VY. [chap. 

other. But Livy must have adhered closely to them in 
their fuller form, while the edition which Polybius gives 
is a summary and corrected one. 

Possibly both followed Silenus. — If we ask what 
were these common sources from which both writers 
drew, we should first note that the resemblance is most 
marked in passages which deal with the march of the 
invading army, and the vicissitudes of the campaigns 
in which Hannibal is the moving spirit of the scenes, 
and the narrative reads like that of an eye-witness, or 
of one who drew his information from the Carthaginian 
camp. Livy cites himself (xxvi. 49.3) the Greek Silenus, 
who is said to have served through the whole of 
Hannibal's campaigns, and to have written with great 
care the history of his wars. He was certainly re- 
ferred to by the Roman writers on the Punic struggle, 
and a painstaking author like Polybius can hardly 
have neglected evidence of so high an order. Silenus 
therefore may have been the fountain-head to which 
many of the passages in question in both writers may 
be ultimately traced. But though Polybius may have 
consulted him directly, there is reason to believe that 
Livy used his evidence in the form in which it was 
presented by some annalist of earlier date, who had 
worked it up with the materials drawn from purely 
Roman sources. 

Livy may have borrowed largely from Caelius 
Antipater. — The earliest of such annalists, we know, 
were Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus, who both 
took part in the great Punic War, and helped to make 
history as well as write it. Like these, most of the 
chroniclers who followed chiefly aimed at brevity, and 
are spoken of by Cicero with much disdain as his- 
torians without a style. But Caelius Antipater, who 
lived a century later, is said by the same critic to have 
written with much more literary care, and was evidently 
in good repute at the end of the Republic. Cicero 
mentions specially his history of the Punic War, and 
also tells us that in this he followed Silenus very 
closely. In the third decade Livy explicitly refers to 



viii.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 81 

him more often than to any other writer, and in 
language which implies that his evidence ranked high, 
and should have weight in any conflict of authorities. 
There is good reason also to suppose that he was 
often used when his name was not directly mentioned. 
It w r as natural that a writer of repute like Caelius, 
whose literary style contrasted favourably with the 
rugged chronicles of earlier days, should have been 
freely used by Livy without much care to turn to his 
authorities, or to balance and harmonise conflicting 
evidence. It was enough for him to note and exercise 
his judgment on the discrepant accounts reported by the 
older writer, without much effort to decide the question 
by fresh data. The critical standard of the age did 
not require him to unfold and to collate the long rolls 
in which the ancient chronicles were written, and to 
risk his own fine style by dwelling on their archaic 
diction. His readers would have much preferred a 
brilliant piece of rhetoric to proof of antiquarian re- 
search, and we need not be surprised that Livy was 
content to satisfy the tastes of the society for which he 
wrote. To sum up then, in the earlier books the 
evidence seems to point to Silenus as the common 
authority of both historians, and .to Caelius as the 
compiler of the Roman version of the story. But 
later in the decade other materials seem to have been 
turned to more account, such as memoirs current in 
the circle of the Scipios, or native chronicles of Africa, 
like those said to have been consulted by king Juba, 
and later works, as of the diffuse and credulous Valerius 
Antias. 

The origin of the Second Punic War, B.C. 218. — 
The main cause of the Second Punic War is found by 
Livy in the ambition of the great generals who pushed 
on their career of conquest in the south of Spain, and 
longed to vindicate the national honour, which had 
been tarnished by the disasters at the close of the last 
war. The immediate occasion of the renewal of the 
struggle was the defiance hurled in the teeth of Rome 
by striking down Saguntum her ally. This account 



Si LIVY. [chap. 

agrees with all the facts which can be gleaned from 
other sources. But there are some antecedents of the 
War which seem unduly slurred over or neglected in 
his pages. Roman sentiment passed lightly over the 
outrage done to Carthage when Sardinia was wrested 
from her grasp in the dire straight of the Mercenary 
war, and the mere attitude of self-defence was shame- 
lessly resented; it did not care to own that the 
alliance with Saguntum was a real intrusion and a 
menace aimed at Carthage, explained but not justified 
by precedents like the dealings with Messana and with 
Capua, which had provoked the earlier struggles ; it 
glossed over the fact that the jealousy of Rome had 
long been roused by the spread of Carthaginian power 
in Spain, and that only the accident of the Celtic rising 
on the Po distracted her attention for a while, and gave 
Hannibal the chance of striking the first blow; it 
glibly spoke of Punic perfidy, as though the act were 
one of unprovoked aggression, and Rome's honour 
in like cases was quite spotless. 

The assumed unwillingness of the government 
of Carthage. — But Livy gives no countenance to the 
alleged dislike of the government of Carthage to the 
war, on which much has been said with little proof. 
It is one thing to make, as he does, Punic envoys, 
while pleading for peace in later years before the 
Roman Senate, shift all the blame on Hannibal, as the 
firebrand who set the strife ablazing without the wish 
or sanction even of the State, and quite another thing 
to say with Fabius Pictor that the army really forced 
the war on a reluctant nation, which dared not thwart 
its general, or disown his bold defiance of the claims 
of Rome. Polybius had disposed already of this fancy in 
a few strong words, and Livy describes more than once 
the course of the debate among the senators of 
Carthage, w 7 here the advocates of peace were few, and 
war or its supplies were voted for with acclamation. 
It is true that the ancients often spoke of the long 
struggle as the Hannibalic war, because the general 
himself was the soul of the whole movement, and the 



viii.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 83 

home government was too far away to guide his 
policy or control his action; it is true also that we 
hear but seldom of money or reinforcements sent 
from Carthage, and so far there may be some colour 
for the charge that the jealousy or coldness of the 
ruling classes left him to fight his battles single- 
handed, relying only on the unparalleled resources of 
his military skill. But we must remember that the 
merchant city was no longer mistress of the seas, and 
that though- her corsairs swept the Italian coasts, they 
could not safely convoy the great fleets that were 
needful for the transport of an army. Spain was the 
favourite recruiting-ground, which could furnish hardy 
soldiers in abundance ; there the levies were pushed 
forward which were to follow the track of Hannibal 
across the Alps, and furnish a new army in the heart 
of Italy for a last decisive blow. But this policy was 
thwarted by the chequered fortunes of their arms in 
Spain, where pressing need at times diverted reinforce- 
ments levied for service under Hannibal. Meantime 
we cannot fairly argue from the silence of the Roman 
writer that he was left without supplies in money to 
raise or to maintain his forces. His country hailed, as 
Livy tells us, with enthusiasm the news of his suc- 
cesses; she was not so niggardly or sordid as to 
starve him into failure ; and when disaster came at 
length after fifteen years of superhuman efforts, she 
did not withhold her confidence from her great son, 
whom she had recalled, if possible, to save her, and 
saw gladly at her helm amid the troubled waters. 

Disputes as to the route of Hannibal. — The 
route of Hannibal across the Alps was a matter of 
dispute in ancient times, and has remained so to the 
present age. Almost every pass along which an army 
could have marched, and some which none but 
practised mountaineers could cross, have been at some 
time advocated as the track of the invading host. But 
many of these attempts are hopelessly at variance with 
the nature of the mountain ranges as at present known, 
or with the chief data of the ancient writers, and the 



8 4 LIVY. [chap. 

books or pamphlets written in their behalf are only 
monuments of misplaced ingenuity or learning. 

Livy's description of it. — If we turn to Livy 
we shall find no definite statements as to the place at 
which the Rhone was crossed, but after the passage 
we are told that Hannibal pushed on inland to avoid 
all contact with the Roman army which was following 
in pursuit and barred the way along the coast. It 
is far more probable however that his route was 
decided on beforehand, and that he was guided by the 
Gauls, who had invited him to Italy, and who would 
naturally lead him through the passes which would 
bring him with most ease into their country. He 
marched onward in four days to the district enclosed 
between the Rhone and the Isere — the insula Alio- 
brogum of later days, where he took part in a civil feud 
between the native chieftains. After that he is repre- 
sented as turning to the left — ad laevam — in *his way 
towards the Alps. This phrase is very difficult, and 
many explanations have been offered. The most 
likely one assumes that he retraced his steps across 
the Isere and down the Rhone — a movement however 
as to which Livy is quite silent— and then turned to 
the left up the banks of the river Drome. Only thus 
could he have passed at this stage through the borders 
of the Tricas/ini, whose chief town was probably 
Aoste on the Drome, and then through the Voconiii, 
whose frontier on the south-east extended far along 
the road to Embrun, through which country Hannibal 
may have led his troops, skirting the lands of the 
Tricorii who were spread to the north-west. This 
road would have brought him to the Durance, and by 
Brian9on across the Mont Genevre, which w T as known 
as the Alpes Juliae to Caesar, but afterwards named 
Cotiiae from the chieftain who improved the mountain 
roads in his own neighbourhood. 

The account in Polybius. — Another detailed de- 
scription of the route is given us by Polybius, who was 
born during the war, and lived at Rome in the society 
of public men whose fathers probably took part in the 



viii.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 85 

great struggle. He was at special pains, as he informs 
us, to consult contemporary evidence, and even travelled 
himself among the Alps, to get further knowledge of 
the scenes. The various stages of the whole journey 
from Cartagena to the Italian plains are definitely 
measured in his pages, and his language points to a 
passage of the Rhone somewhere near the town of 
Orange, and to a four days' march onward to the 
Isere. From that point he records no names until 
he makes Hannibal issue from the Alps among the 
Insubres, the leading power among the Gallic tribes 
which were then at war with Rome. He explains this 
silence in the general ignorance that prevailed of the 
exact position of the Alpine tribes and passes. But 
he definitely states that from the district between the 
Rhone and the Isere Hannibal marched in ten days 
eight hundred stadia along the river, before he began 
to climb the Alps, and that in the plain country which 
he traversed the barbarians were kept in check by his 
own cavalry as well as by native aid. There can be 
little doubt that the river of the whole narrative is the 
Rhone, and Polybius expressly says that they kept 
near to it to the entrance of the mountain pass. His 
language seems to indicate the route which follows 
the Rhone up to Vienne, and leaving it for a while in 
its great bend, meets it again at St. Genix, and runs on 
to the pass of Mont du Chat, from which the way 
would naturally lead through the Tarantaise, and over 
the Little St. Bernard to the valley of Aosta. This pass, 
over the range called afterwards the Graian Alps, was 
one of the best known and earliest used across the 
mountains. Its neighbourhood was by far the most 
fertile of them all, and as such best suited to supply an 
army on the march. It led most directly to the cantons 
of the Gallic tribes which sent to invite the Punic forces. 
Their envoys would naturally know it best, and be 
most likely to guide the invaders on that course. 
Accordingly Polybius tells us that Hannibal recruited 
first his soldiers' strength among the friendly Gauls, 
and then at their desire made war upon the tribe of 



86 LIVY. [(bap. 

the Taurini, whose town bequeathed its name, though 
not perhaps its site, to the Turin of modern times. 
It was known in later times that this tribe was attacked 
before the collision with the legions, and it was natural 
to infer that they came into hostile contact as soon 
as he issued from the mountains, and because they 
denied him passage through their valleys. This seems 
to have been the popular legend of two centuries later, 
and the Roman historian admits that there was no 
sure evidence before him, but that he relied mainly on 
tradition. The account of Polybius he does not 
notice, though he refers to Caelius Antipater, whose 
account, as far as we can judge, agreed in the main 
with the Greek writer. 

General conclusions. — On the whole then, the 
most probable conclusion is that the route traced by 
Livy was that from the Drome to the Durance, and 
across the Mont Genevre, the Alpes Cottiae of later 
times. But Polybius appears to have believed the army 
to have made a longer circuit by the Rhone and the 
Tarantaise, across the Graian Alps, or what is now 
the Little St. Bernard. It is very hard to force the two 
accounts into agreement, and if they are at issue, there 
can be little doubt that the authority of Polybius should 
have the greater weight, as he was the earlier and more 
accurate historian, and had made more special studies 
on the subject. Niebuhr and Mommsen therefore 
have accepted his account in favour of the Graian 
Alps. 

Roman rancour towards Hannibal. — Generosity 
was not a Roman virtue, and there was little colour of 
it in the relentless rancour with which Italian legend 
blackened the memory of their greatest enemy. Poly- 
bius indeed could sift and compare the evidence of 
living men, and thus was able to ignore contemptu- 
ously or disprove most of the malignant charges 
brought against him. But later writers were less 
scrupulous in this respect, and scandalous stories, due 
to credulous fear or hatred, gathered round the name 
of Hannibal, and found a place in history. They are 



viti.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 87 

reflected even in the narrative of Livy, though they ill 
agree with his own generous love of truth, or with the 
facts which he records elsewhere. 

Gross scandals as to his early character. — First 
he gives us, probably from Punic sources, what the veter- 
ans may have told each other of their great captain s 
earlier years, of his hardihood and gallant bearing and 
perfect mastery of all a soldier's trade. We hear how he 
shared the coarse fare, and daily drudgery, and nightly 
watch of the meanest soldier in the ranks, till he won the 
confidence of every grade alike, and was foremost in 
every post of trust or danger. But then almost on the 
same page we read of scandal too gross to be repeated, 
due to the coarse banter of the camp, or to the reckless 
slander of a rival faction in the city, and as such un- 
worthy of a grave historian's notice. 

The early campaigns. — In describing the first 
campaigns in Italy Livy does ample justice to the 
general's consummate skill, which forged such a 
mighty thunderbolt of war out of the motley levies of 
Numidians, Spaniards, Gauls, who were fighting for a 
cause in which they had no natural stake, and for 
a country where they had not even civic rights. He 
makes us feel the moral influence of the commander 
who sustained the courage of his men in the long and 
toilsome march through mountain ranges, the dangers 
of which were magnified by fear, as they were two 
centuries later by Livy's credulous horror. When the 
shock of battle comes we see that Punic armies are 
made now of other stuff than those which in the First 
War seldom faced the legions save to be defeated. 
The veterans trained in the school of Hamilcar his 
father might be trusted to go anywhere and do any- 
thing, but with the genius of Hannibal to lead them, 
even Roman courage found their onset almost irresist- 
ible. It was no secret of strategy in which the merit 
lay, such as could be gradually learnt by others, and 
turned in time against its author, but a fund of resource 
and a subtlety of rapid insight which could see at a 
glance the fatal point of weakness, and constantly 



88 LIVY. [chap. 

combine fresh methods of attack. No State but Rome 
could have survived such terrible disasters as befell her 
at Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae, and it was only 
thanks to her walled towns and entrenched camps that 
she held at bay the skilful strategist whom her legions 
were no match for in the open field. Her consuls 
shrunk from risking an encounter, and were content 
to watch him from afar, thinking it, as Livy tells us, 
almost a triumph to cross swords with him without 
defeat. As time went on the brilliant victories were 
fewer, for Roman generals were growa more wary, and 
their allies of Central Italy were faithful in the strong- 
holds, which were safe from an enemy who had no 
siege-train in his camp. But even then, when his 
veterans were thinned by death, and he had lost his 
hold on all but a corner of Southern Italy, and his last 
hope of help from Spain was wrecked by the defeat of 
Hasdrubal, even then the Roman armies which were 
closing round him dared not face his tiger spring. 
In a striking passage (xxviii. 12) Livy owns that his 
greatness was as unquestioned then as in the days of 
his success, for his ascendancy was still as marked 
over both friend and foe, there was not a whisper of 
disloyalty among the bands whom he had gathered 
round his standards, men of various nationalities and 
manners, who bore in his service cheerfully hardships 
and dearth of food and arrears of pay, the like of 
which in years gone by provoked the fierce explosion 
of the Mercenary war. 

Hannibal's supposed vices. — But in the character 
of Hannibal, which Livy sketches at the outset, the 
lights and shadows are both very deep. His brilliant 
qualities were balanced, he tells us, by inhuman cruelty, 
more than Punic perfidy, and absolute disregard of all 
that men and God hold sacred. It might be enough 
to set against so sweeping an indictment the general 
denial of Polybius, who was too critical to leave such 
charges quite unsifted, and had been familiar in the 
circle of the Scipios with a more generous sentiment 
towards the fallen foe. For one defect indeed he 



viii.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 89 

allows that there way more evidence ; the well-informed 
spoke of his avarice as admitted by the fellow-country- 
men who knew him best. Yet even this perhaps 
chiefly reflects the gossip of the camp and the dis- 
content of soldiers who chafed when their greed for 
plunder was reined in too sharply. Their commander 
had to husband his resources, and make war support 
war with an eye to future years, and could not tolerate 
such wanton waste or licensed brigandage as a Tilly or 
Wallenstein in later ages. 

His cruelty. — The charge of cruelty, as Polybius 
explains, was partly due to a confusion bet-ween him- 
self and an ill-famed namesake in his army who left 
behind him many a memory of shame. But the advice 
ascribed to him that the soldiers should be trained to 
live on human food was doubtless only a grim jest at 
the scanty commissariat from which they suffered. 
But indeed apart from any such mistake, it was natural 
enough that much of the misery of those fifteen years 
of ceaseless war should be linked to the name of 
Hannibal himself. As the tramp of armies passed 
across the land, and the wail of anguish rose from 
pillaged farms and desolated homes, the invader's 
name became a sound of terror w T ith which mothers 
hushed their little ones to rest, and the sufferers were 
in no mood for nice distinctions when they thought of 
the cruel outcome of the bloody war. But if we turn 
to questions of detail we see that the authorities whom 
Livy followed gave little evidence to justify such state- 
ments. He dismissed the Spanish waverers to their 
homes when they shrunk from the hazards of that 
plunge into a world unknown; he gave his Italian 
prisoners their freedom, and was willing that the 
Romans should be ransomed : Livy does not tell us 
even that he sold them into slavery, when the Senate 
left them to their fate, and it is only in much later 
writers that we read of the horrors said to have 
befallen those whom their country had abandoned to 
his mercy. A Roman governor could massacre in 
cold blood the defenceless citizens of Enna whom he 



90 LIVY. [oh a p. 

had summoned to him with the mask of peace; the 
garrison of Casilinum could make themselves secure 
against a rising from within by murdering all whom 
they thought dangerous; a Marcellus could so far 
forget the loyalty of Syracuse under Hiero's long 
reign, and his promise of protection to a people 
overawed by mutineers and traitors, as to ruin an 
undeserving city while he wreaked his vengeance on 
the guilty. But Hannibal was patient with the noble 
of Capua who defied him to his face, and only sent 
him into exile when he stirred the citizens to arms, and 
Livy himself scarcely records a single act of special 
cruelty that could be proved during his long career in 
Italy, until the eve of his departure, when he slew, so 
ran the tale, in Juno's shrine many of his Italian soldiers 
who would not follow him across the seas. The history 
of Polybius fails us at this period, but it was not thus 
that Hannibal had dealt with the Spaniards who refused 
to cross the Alps ; Livy silently ignores elsewhere, as 
we can see, much of the foul slander which later writers 
have repeated, and we may safely say that such a pur- 
poseless atrocity is inconsistent with the whole tenour 
of his life. 

The charge of perfidy not proved. — The charge 
of perfidy is even less sustained. The well-known re- 
proach of Punic craft may have grown perhaps in earlier 
clays out of the shrewd bargains of Phoenician traders. 
But the Romans had no right to accuse Carthage of 
bad faith in her dealings with them, and Livy gives no 
data to justify his statement about Hannibal. In one 
case even where the annalists had accepted a malignant 
story, he admits that all the evidence points to his 
having acted with perfect honour in the matter (xxiii. 19). 
Subtle schemer as he was, he did succeed in outwitting 
the second-rate generals of Rome, passing where he 
would between their armies, and hurling himself with 
lightning speed upon them when they thought him 
far away. He was always ready with stratagems to 
baffle his opponents, but wiles like those were fair in 
war, and there is no evidence that he proved ever 



viii.] THE SFXOND PUNIC WAR. 91 

faithless to his soldiers or allies. Rather the loyalty 
with which they clung to him in spite of every hardship, 
the absence of mutiny or disaffection in his camp, the 
spell of personal influence which never failed him, are 
alone enough to disprove such vague and unsubstantial 
charges. 

Causes of the final success of Rome — If we 
ask now what were the causes of the ultimate success 
of Rome, we shall find indeed the materials in Livy for 
the answer, but no clear estimate of his own. The 
commanders whom she could send into the field seem 
like respectable drill-sergeants pitted against the greatest 
general of that, or perhaps of any age. Her stedfastness 
in times of trial is matched by the marvellous tenacity 
wi f h which he clung to Italy in the face of overpowering 
numbers. Her legions even, staunch as their courage 
was, could hardly cope at first with the skilful me- 
chanism devised and trimmed by Punic wit. But, first, 
the imperial fabric which had been slowly built up in the 
course of ages was firm enough to stand the strain of 
the attack, strengthened as that system was by the grip 
of the colonies on the great roads and posts of vantage. 
Greeks and Bruttians might fall away to the invader, 
but the towns of Central Italy were true to Rome; 
there was little to attract them in the promise of a 
Punic empire, resting on alliance with the Gauls ; their 
walls were able to defy attack from an assailant who 
had no leisure or means to organise machines of war; 
their warlike youth vastly outnumbered the recruits 
whom he could find to fill the gaps which every battle 
left in his ranks of trusty veterans. Secondly, Carthage 
was weak where Rome was strong. The subject towns 
of Africa had little love for the proud mistress who 
ruled them with a rod of iron, and dared not trust 
them even with a fence of walls. They fell away 
therefore when a foreign army set foot upon their soil, 
or they were powerless to repel attack when made in 
earnest. The Nomad tribes on whom her yoke 
pressed heavily were glad to turn against the ruler 
who had repressed their savage license. The Car- 



9» LIVY. [chap. 

thaginians themselves had no love for the soldier's 
trade, and looked to aliens to fight their battles. 
Spain had of late been the favourite recruiting-ground, 
but the march across the Alps was long and toilsome, 
and their enemies were now on the alert to bar the 
way. Thirdly, the resources on which Carthage could 
rely were widely scattered, and a storm, an accident 
could ruin the most skilful combination, as when the 
two brothers were ready to join hands in the heart of 
Italy, and failed after years of effort because despatches 
had miscarried. Rome lay in the midst of her sup- 
plies; all around her were the friendly towns from 
which she drew her soldiers, too strong to storm, too 
large to be besieged by any Punic force ; she could not 
be cut off from her natural base, or forced to stake all 
upon a single battle. 

Little use made of the Navies. — There is one 
feature of the struggle which, strange to say, Livy 
passes by without remark. In the First Punic War 
much of the interest, as well as of the efforts of the 
combatants, was concentrated on the sea. Each power 
built and manned enormous fleets, and it was Rome's 
special glory that she created a war-navy on a sudden, 
and by the inventiveness of her constructive skill she 
triumphed on the waters over the great ship-builders of 
the ancient world. But in the Second War there is no 
naval fight of any moment, and we scarcely hear of 
any fleets on either side save a few Punic consairs on 
the coasts of Italy, and the transports which conveyed 
the Roman soldiers to and fro with little danger from 
the ships of Carthage. For some years indeed the 
rival powers seem to have changed places, and the 
great trading city makes no effort to regain her mastery 
of the seas, while her armies carry all before them on 
dry land. It was part perhaps of the policy pursued 
by the great house of Barca to break with the traditions 
of the past, and to organise a solid power in Spain, 
where a steady infantry might be brought into the 
field, unlike the loose levies of the former war, and 
then to gather the Gallic tribes around the invading 



viii.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 93 

army for a combined attack on Italy and Rome. It 
may be also that the losses of the former war and 
its indemnity, followed by the terrible struggle with 
the Mercenaries, had so far drained the treasury of 
Carthage, that she had not much to spend upon her 
ships, but in later years she surely rued her naval 
weakness, which must have sadly crippled all her 
efforts to reinforce her gallant son in his desperate 
struggle to maintain his hold on Italy. 

Livy's neglect of geography. — In the Third 
Decade, where we chiefly are concerned with military 
topics, we feel keenly Livy's carelessness in questions 
of physical geography. Polybius thought it worth his 
while to make a special visit to the Alps to explore the 
scenes of the campaign, but Livy was content to 
imagine marches and countermarches in his study, or 
to turn over the rolls of the old chronicles in the 
Palatine Library hard by, without an effort, so far as 
we can judge, to see with his own eyes the site of the 
most famous battle-fields. The natural result is a 
frequent want of clearness in the outlines and of preci- 
sion in details. Circumstantial features of the route 
across the Alps, as given by Polybius, are fitted on to 
quite a different line of march ; the exact position of 
the armies at the battles of Trebia and Cannae is still 
matter of dispute ; the passage of the Apennines and 
the immediate antecedents of the disaster at Lake 
Trasimene are vaguely stated ; there is nothing in the 
neighbourhood of Casilinum to explain how Hannibal 
could have been almost caught there as in a trap ; in 
the march even from Capua to Rome he cannot give 
the local names in proper order, or enumerate correctly 
the tribes of Central Italy which the invader passed 
upon his way. Even Polybius, accurate as he was 
in most respects, is often far from definite in topo- 
graphical details, but Livy's carelessness is carried 
further than the loose standards of his age can warrant, 
and in the last years of the war it throws a whole 
campaign sometimes into confusion. 

Care in registering portents. — There is however 



94 LIVY. [chap. 

another feature of the age which Livy illustrates at 
what may seem often disproportionate length. Long 
lists of portents are recorded by him, extending some- 
times over a whole chapter, and recurring year by year, 
and at especial length when the prospects of the 
Roman State were darkest. To a modern reader it 
may seem strange and even ludicrous to read so much 
about the blood which was seen oozing from the shields 
stored in the temples, of fiery stones falling from the 
sky, of blood-stained ears which dropped from the 
baskets of the reapers, of the spears of soldiers seen to 
be on fire, and heavens which were rent asunder, while 
a bright light shone forth from the gap, of prophetic- 
tablets shrinking, of goats covered with a coat of wool 
at birth, and cocks and hens whose sex was on a 
sudden mysteriously changed. But though we may 
be impatient as we read all this so often, Livy had no 
wish to trifle with grave topics of religion, and he 
gravely copied what he found in the older documents 
before him. The ancient Romans thought it quite a 
thing of course that the gods should give their warn- 
ings of their will or their displeasure by unearthly signs 
or portents. In times of crisis or excitement credulous 
fancy greedily caught up the wildest stories and dis- 
torted possibly the plainest facts. We can realise 
more easily the superstitious spirit of the age, and the 
gloom which settled on the public mind in those dark 
days of disaster, when the timid saw around them in 
the forms of earth and sky little but reflections of their 
fears, and priests and senators discussed the presages 
of probable defeat. It was the business of the State 
'through the College of the Pontiffs to take the needful 
steps to satisfy the gods and set the public mind at 
rest. Others might shudder and be silent, but they 
must learn to recognise the voice which spoke in 
portents, must turn over their old books and profit by 
the inductions of the past, and read in the unearthly 
sisris some sort of Revelation of the Will of Heaven. 
For this purpose, after due scrutiny of evidence, the 
prodigies were chronicled from year to year in the 



vin.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 95 

records of the Pontiffs. To isolate them from each 
other might mislead the student, rather they must be 
regarded as the scattered phrases of the message sent, 
and skilled interpreters must piece them all together. 
Hence we may explain the exceeding length at which 
they were recorded, and the punctilious care with 
which historians transferred them to their pages. 

Party bias in the annals. — There is good reason 
to believe that some passages of history may have been 
disfigured at this period by party spirit or by family 
pride. Some bias of this kind was natural enough in 
the chroniclers whom Livy copied, and candid and 
dispassionate as he may have been himself, we may 
trace perhaps in what he tells us the influence of such 
distortions. 

The account of Flaminius. — The story of Fla- 
minius is one of the most familiar of these cases. 
The lower orders loved him well, for he had shown as 
tribune that he had the interests of the poorer citizens 
at heart. His was the first agrarian bill since the days 
of the Licinii, and in it he proposed to divide among 
the needy much of the domain-land in Cisalpine 
Gaul. The nobles in the Senate bitterly opposed the 
measure, which was pushed through the popular 
assembly in spite of their resistance. The people 
raised him in their gratitude to all the highest offices of 
the State, but in his first consulship men spread the 
rumour that he risked probable disaster by neglecting 
the commonest rules of strategy; the Senate sum- 
moned him to resign his office, on the ground of some 
technical flaw in his election, but he would not open 
the despatch till he had ended his campaign, and on 
his return persisted in entering Rome in triumph, 
despite the refusal of the Senate. The hatred of the 
nobles pursued him ever after : they bitterly resented 
his re-election to the consulship, railed against him as 
a freethinker displeasing to the powers of heaven, and 
seemed likely to force him to resign on some religious 
plea. They spread the tale in after years, we scarcely 
know how truly for Polybius ignores it, that he stole 
5 



96 LIVY. [chap. 

away from Rome in secret, and entered upon office 
without the due formalities of worship. Early in the 
campaign, they said, he scoffed at warning portents, 
neglected all the rules of caution, rushed in his vain- 
glory to close with the invader, and sacrificed not 
himself merely but a Roman army in the fatal pass of 
Trasimene. The whole account seems coloured by 
the rancorous spirit of faction. His position at 
Arretium was well chosen for defence, and his plans 
were probably suggested by the successful campaign 
against the Gauls in 224. He showed no wish to 
force an action prematurely, but after sending to his 
colleague at Ariminum to hasten to the defence of 
Rome, it was his duty to move southward to effect a 
junction, and to keep the enemy meantime in view. 
He was no match indeed for Hannibal, who closed 
the trap upon him in the defiles of Trasimene ; but 
aristocratic writers seem to have taken him as a scape-" 
goat, and to have thrown all the blame of the disaster 
on the rashness and incapacity of the champion of the 
commons, pursuing his memory with their unrelenting 
scorn. 

Terentius Varro. — There are traces of like bias 
probably in the accounts of the crushing blow at 
Cannae. The Senate had given positive orders to 
the generals to force a battle ; they commanded the 
largest army which Rome had brought into the field, 
and they could not long maintain it in a country which 
Hannibal had stripped of its supplies. But the 
annalists deal tenderly with the good name of ^Emilius 
Paulus, whom the nobles trusted. He would be wary 
like the cautious Fabius who watched his enemy and 
never risked a battle, but he had to share his power 
with a colleague, Varro the butcher's son, who was 
impatient to make good his vapouring words before 
the populace at Rome, and rid the soil of Italy of the 
invader, whom the nobles dallied with instead of 
crushing. It was the rashness of this headstrong 
darling of the mob that exposed the army to disaster, 
was the favourite cry among the nobles, but there is no 



viii.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 97 

proof that the State sanctioned such a view, or lost its 
confidence in Varro, who lived to serve his country 
longer, and to fill offices of trust in later years. 

Marcellus perhaps over-praised. — If the annal- 
ists dealt harshly with the memory of. some who had 
risen from the ranks, they were lavish of their praises 
of the noble champions who stood conspicuous amid 
the general mediocrity of talent. The brave arid reso- 
lute Marcellus became almost a hero in their eyes 
because, like Fabius, he kept the field without great 
Losses, or at least watched Hannibal from his intrench- 
ments and saved the neighbouring strongholds from 
his clutches. This to be sure was no great triumph, 
but it gave the Romans time to drill their levies, and 
to draw tighter the enclosing lines, and to exhaust the 
resources of their great opponent. But for this they 
imagined victories that he never won, if we believe at 
least the explicit statement in Polybius ; they exag- 
gerated trifling skirmishes, and put vainglorious words 
into his mouth, as if his prowess had turned the tide 
after the defeat at Cannae, and he were the chief 
champion of the State. Livy even scarcely makes a 
protest against his cruelties at Syracuse and his greedy 
exactions afterwards in Sicily, and exalts his common- 
place merits to make him seem a worthy antagonist 
for Hannibal. 

The legends of the Scipionic circle. — The bias 
is perhaps still more apparent if we turn to the history 
of the campaigns in Spain, where the legends current 
in the Scipionic circle were accepted as the truths of 
history. There was the more ease in such distortions 
that the interior of Spain was so far out of the Roman 
ken, and its geography so little known till ages after, 
that not much could be learnt of the course of the cam- 
paigns, and the supposed scenes of splendid victories 
are merely names to us which disappear and leave no 
certain traces. The great family of the Scipios con- 
ducted the war for many years as if it were their own 
peculiar domain in which they ruled by natural right. 
In the bulletins which they sent home, or in the later 



98 LIVY. [chap, viii.] 

stories of trie eulogists, were marvellous descriptions of 
great armies routed, and enormous slaughter made; and 
even Livy, who complacently records their triumphs, 
is shocked at times at the excessive numbers. In the 
main no doubt they were successful, but the fortunes 
of their arms were far more chequered than family 
vanity would fain allow, and at times the truth leaked 
out, and men sharply criticised at Rome their conduct 
of affairs. But the exaggerations reach their climax 
when the elder Scipios are slain, and no one dared 
volunteer to take their places till the future conqueror 
of Carthage, young as he was, stepped into the breach 
as a forlorn hope. Rome was poor enough in generals 
indeed, but she had brave citizens in plenty, whose 
memory Livy might have spared so cruel a taunt. 
Scipio did great things in Spain no doubt, as in his 
unlooked-for spring upon New Carthage, but the 
annals are too prodigal in their exaggerations when 
they make Hasdrubal lose 20,000 men upon the field 
of Baecula, and yet begin almost on the same day his 
long intended march across the Pyrenees and Alps to 
reinforce his brother in the heart of Italy. In later 
books we lose sight of the Roman general bound by 
traditions of strict discipline, and find in his place a 
hero of romance, who poses sometimes as a sovereign 
power unwilling to accept a proffered kingdom from 
the Spanish tribes, and who sometimes leaves his army 
and the scene of his command in quest of strange 
adventures, like a Knight of the Round Table, as in 
the story which makes him cross the seas and thread 
his way through many dangers to the court of 
the Numidian Syphax. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE FEIST WAR WITH MACEDONIA AND THE PROCLA- 
MATION OF GREEK FREEDOM. 

Rome's Wars in the East. — In the remaining 
books of the Fourth and the Fifth Decades — fifteen in 
all — we trace the extension of Roman conquest in 
the East. The great duel with Carthage had been 
closed at last, and Rome went swiftly forward with no 
effectual let or hindrance in the career of her ambition 
till she had spread her arms over the whole civilised 
world. In the darkest crisis of her struggle with the 
invaders she heard almost with panic that Philip of 
Macedon was leagued with Hannibal to compass her 
destruction. It was but an idle show of coalition, but 
it was now his turn to suffer for the fears his threats 
had caused. The neighbouring Greeks whom he had 
long insulted and oppressed were stirred to arms, and 
with their help he was driven back within his narrowed 
borders and stripped of all that had been won by 
a century of force or fraud. Antiochus of Syria ven- 
tured to put forward imperial pretensions among the 
coasts and isles of Greece, where Rome professed to 
be the arbitress of freedom. He was so rash and over- 
weening as to try conclusions with the legions, but his 
multitudinous array was scattered at their onset, and 
one short campaign sufficed to spread Rome's influence 
through Western Asia. Macedon was still strong 
enough to give her trouble, and Perseus seemed to 
waver between an attitude of peace and war. But 
Roman diplomatists had little scruple; they began to 
weave their toils about him till their generals were 
ready to step in, and when their work was done Mace- 



ioo LIVY. [chap. 

donia was left, no more a sovereign power, but a 
geographical expression. 

Two distinct sources of Livy's remaining 
books. — In Livy's narrative of these events two distinct 
currents may be noticed, one of which carries us to the 
East, to the scenes of diplomacy and warfare in Mace- 
donia, Greece, and Asia, while the other moves to and 
fro in Rome itself, and gathers up details of the debates 
and the elections and the social life of the great city. 
Each of the two flows regularly on, spreading some- 
times over many chapters, till suddenly the scene is 
changed, and its place is taken by the other. If we 
compare them closely we become aware of differences 
between the two in style and treatment, and even in 
points of more importance. The order and the causes 
of political events implied in one fail to agree with 
what is stated in the other ; the chronological data do 
not coincide ; there is a marked contrast in the mode 
of dealing both with questions of strategy and topogra- 
phical details ; and the standards of value and of mea- 
sure in the tw T o are almost uniformly different. 

One source is Polybius — For the first, comprising 
more than half of the whole narrative, there can be no 
doubt that Polybius was the main, if not the only, source. 
The corresponding portion of his work is not indeed 
preserved in its entirety, but considerable fragments 
still remain, all of which agree so closely with the 
accounts of Livy, as to leave us no reason to suppose 
that in those matters at least he consulted any other 
author. But he followed the original not in the letter 
but the spirit, compressing commonly into briefer 
compass what he thought tedious or laboured, but 
adding also from his fancy many a touch of rhetoric 
to make a story spirited and picturesque, and better 
suited for his Roman readers. Sometimes there are 
errors in the rendering of the Greek, due perhaps to 
carelessness and haste, and now and then national pre- 
judice seems to have tampered with a passage which 
may easily have shocked the feelings of the historian 
or his readers. 



ix.] THE FIRST WAR WITH MACEDONIA. 101 

Polybius was freely translated by Livy. — It 

may surprise us at the first to find that so much of Livy's 
work was a free translation of an earlier author, and 
still more that, candid as he was, he did not think it 
needful to acknowledge the greatness of his debt. He 
speaks of Polybius indeed with great respect, and 
implies that he relied much on his authority, but he 
does not say a word from which we could infer that he 
was borrowing from him constantly with little but a 
change of language. We know however that the 
practice was a common one with the chroniclers of the 
Middle Ages, and taken as a matter of course and 
spoken of without reproach. We have good reason 
to believe that ancient writers often did the same, and 
that the task of criticism and selection of materials 
often was confined to the choice of some one standard 
of authority for a given period or subject, which was 
used and copied without scruple for a time, and with 
little effort to fuse it with elements from other quarters, 
till a new subject was begun, and another original 
selected, with which the same process was repeated. 
The rolls of ancient manuscripts were so unwieldy, and 
the labour of comparing many at one time so great, 
that only the most painstaking would take the neces- 
sary trouble, and the loose canons of historic criticism 
laid no stress upon it. 

This source is of first-rate value. — It is fortunate 
that throughout this period Livy drew so largely from 
an author of such merit, and that much of what would 
else have been quite lost to us is thus preserved in 
Latin dress. The accuracy and learning of Polybius 
have been dwelt upon already, but the value of his 
work became much greater as he drew nearer to his 
own times and to the politics of his own country. It 
is just here that Livy recognised the special value 
of his writings, in dealing with events which were 
most closely connected with the history of Greece, and 
in regard to which the sources of his information were 
the fullest. 

The second source was Roman Annalists. — The 



102 LIVY. [CHAP. 

second class of records, whose sundered fragments 
break the connection of the first, shows far less unity 
of treatment. It is no continuous narrative, designed 
to bring out the order of causation, as in what the 
ancients called ' pragmatic history/ but consists often 
of a number of disjointed statements or bare facts, 
such as the rites and ceremonies of the state religion, 
and the lists of magistrates and provinces, and the 
summary of portents, all of which were copied pro- 
bably from the official archives as registered by the 
College of the Pontiffs. Those scanty annals were 
the groundwork of the later chronicles, which were not 
content however with such dry details, but varied their 
monotony with pieces of fine writing, such as rhe- 
torical descriptions of the battles or the sieges, and 
grand bursts of declamation after the latest fashion of 
the schools. In the parts of Livy's history where he 
depends on such authorities campaigns are described 
at length, but the outlines are shadowy and indistinct, 
the numbers are extravagantly large, and the geogra- 
phical limits ill-defined. The author himself was often 
startled by the exaggerations which he found in the 
pages of Valerius Antias, or of the Claudius who trans- 
lated the memoirs of Acilius, but his frequent references 
to the former writer, harsh as is their tone, imply per- 
haps that his was the accepted version of the Annals, 
most in vogue till Livy's days, and as such to be taken 
as the literary type. In questions even of imperial 
policy, discussed as they were in Rome itself, there is 
little to explain the leading ideas and motives of the 
ruling classes, but in their stead we find only the pomp 
and glitter of the surface life, as it might be described 
in the pages of a Court Gazette ; and while the greatest 
personages pass away without a word of comment at 
their death, we are duly told when one or other obscure 
priest was succeeded by another as unimportant as 
himself. 

The origin of the war with Philip, B.C. 200. — 
At times even these accounts reflect not so much the 
real causes or occasions of great movements as the 



ix.] THE FIRST WAR WITH MACEDONIA. 103 

fallacious pleas or plausible excuses urged by the 
Senate on a credulous public, and meant only to serve 
a passing end. An example of this class may be found 
perhaps in the rumour which was industriously spread 
that Philip was mustering his forces, and Italy was 
threatened with invasion. The long-sighted Senate 
must have seen that war with Macedonia must come 
soon or late, and that it was wise to push it on before 
Carthage could recruit her shattered forces and attempt 
another coalition. In the first war there had been no 
serious effort on the part of Philip, and quiet citizens 
who longed for peace could hardly realise the danger 
that might threaten them one day from the genius of 
Hannibal with all the united strength of Macedonia and 
Carthage at his back. The Assembly met therefore in 
no martial mood, refused even at the first, as we are 
told, to vote for war. The chroniclers broidered on 
this simple text, and brought forward tribune and 
consul to declaim on either side and set forth in stirring 
language the restless ambition of the Senate and the 
dangers of Macedonian aggression. But Livy clearly 
shows us elsewhere, when he takes Polybius as his 
guide, that the government of Rome looked far ahead, 
and aimed at crippling Philip's power betimes by rally- 
ing against him all the states which had had cause to 
fear or hate the moody tyrant. They sent in an ulti- 
matum therefore which was sure to be rejected, and 
came forward as the champions of the Greeks who 
hardly welcomed their deliverers, and in default of 
pleas to justify their action caught even at the poor 
excuse of a late attack on their allies of Athens. 

The accounts of Polybius clear as to tactics. — 
The following campaigns and the operations of the 
war are described in terms which markedly contrast 
with the vague commonplaces in so many of the earlier 
books. Polybius had made a special study of strategy 
and tactics, and to him we owe the elaborate com- 
parison between the Roman and the Macedonian 
systems on various points connected with the skir- 
mishers, and the intrenchments and the phalanx. 



104 LIVY. [char 

It is true that even here from careless haste Livy 
seems in the borrowing to have spoiled some features, 
as where by mistaking the meaning of a single word 
he turns the command to advance with levelled spears 
into an order to fling their spears away and close with 
their swords in a hand to hand encounter. 

Geographical precision. — Another strong point 
of the Greek historian was his extended knowledge of 
geography. Thanks to the precision of his statements, 
as transcribed by Livy, we can definitely fix the scenes 
of the campaigns, and understand the policy of Philip, 
at the time when the chapters of the annalists about 
the wars in Spain give us only vague ideas of armies 
marching to and fro in space, and slaughtering 
myriads of the natives. 

Roman generalship was poor. — Here, as often in 
the earlier stages of their wars, the Roman generals 
exhibit little skill. More than once they tried to 
force the western passes into Philip's kingdom, but 
only to waste their strength in petty skirmishes and 
toilsome marches through inhospitable highlands. 
Lying bulletins arrived at Rome, and found a place 
in the official journals, with their boastful tale of 
victories won ; but the soldiers in the field grew weary 
of their hardships, and almost broke out in open 
mutiny when they contrasted the fond hopes of booty 
with which they volunteered for service, with their 
actual experience of hard blows and scanty fare. 

Flamininus more a diplomatist than a soldier. — 
Even the fame of Flamininus rests more on the poli- 
tician's than the general's talents. The crowning 
victory of Cynoscephalae was won by the soldiers, not 
by their commander. He was marching through a 
hostile country, and had never felt the enemies who for 
days were close at hand; he blundered into battle 
without a plan, and it went hardly with him at the 
first, till the phalanx, formidable as it was when it 
stood firm with level front, was thrown into disorder 
as it charged over rough ground, while a tribune with 
prompt insight turned its flank, and the legionaries 



ix.] THE FIRST WAR WITH MACEDONIA. 105 

forced their way through the gaping ranks, and cut 
the spearmen down, encumbered hopelessly with their 
unwieldy weapons. 

Clear accounts of national characteristics. — 
It adds greatly to the interest of the history of this 
period that, thanks to the Greek historian, we can so 
clearly picture to our fancy the characteristic features 
of the several peoples, and the intricacies of their local 
politics. Of Carthaginians and Spaniards we read 
little but lifeless generalities in Livy, but the Greek 
peoples and their statesmen are pourtrayed in vivid 
colours. 

The Aetolian. — The Aetolian character stands out 
before us as we read of what they do in the council 
chamber and the field of battle ; one after another we 
learn to know their qualities of boastful arrogance 
and turbulent self-assertion, the greed, the treachery, 
the ferocious cruelty which made them the most un- 
lovely race of Greece. 

The Achaean League. — We sympathise with the 
far nobler state of the Achaeans, trying in evil days to 
maintain the free life of their federal republic, and to 
raise a national army in spite of the decay of ancient 
discipline and valour, yet too weak to stand alone and 
hold the balance between the warring powers, and dis- 
tracted by the rival influences of Macedonian and 
Roman factions, till they became in turn the ally, the 
tool, the victim of Rome's unscrupulous policy of self- 
aggrandisement 

The Spartan Nabis. — In Nabis of Sparta we may 
trace the final outcome of Greek tyranny in its latest 
and its vilest stage, where the usurper holds a city 
down by. the grip of mercenary soldiers or as the 
armed instrument of a foreign ruler, and there are no 
showy fruits of literature or industry or art, as in the 
earlier ages, to justify or to disguise the violence of 
absolute power. 

Macedonia. — "Macedonia itself deserves our pity. 
Its hardy population had borne much and long from 
the ambition of its ruling line. For a century and 



io6 LIVY. [citap. 

a-half its name had filled a large space in the world's 
history, and been a sound of terror in the far-off 
regions of the East. It had been the pioneer of Hel- 
lenic culture in lands before unknown. It had bred a 
race of generals and statesmen whose diplomacy and 
wars had influenced wellnigh every government on 
earth. Even in the days of its decline it had in Philip 
a brilliant and audacious ruler, whose talents neigh- 
bouring states respected even while they loathed his 
cruelties ; under him the nation gallantly fought on 
for years against the powers leagued with Rome ; in 
a single year it faced West and North and South, and 
drove back on every side the discomfited invaders. 
But the phalanx was no match for the legion, and 
could not promptly adapt itself to new conditions ; its 
veterans had been thinned by constant warfare : the 
hardy peasantry could not longer raise fresh levies, 
and Macedonia, crushed by the great defeat at Cynos- 
cephalae, had to withdraw within its ancient borders, 
recall its garrisons from every subject state, send 
home the Greeks who fought under its standards, and 
pledge itself to curtailed armaments and a policy of 
peace. 

The famous proclamation of Greek freedom. — 
There are few scenes in history more familiar than the 
great gathering at the Isthmian Games at which the 
herald's voice was heard proclaiming to the assembled 
crowds that Rome had broken happily the links of 
Macedonian bondage, and was well pleased to give 
back their freedom to all the States of Greece. It was 
a picture to kindle Livy's fancy, and he describes in 
rapturous terms the enthusiasm of the throngs and the 
lyric fervour of their praises, whose burden was that 
' there was one race of men on earth willing to wage 
war and risk their treasure and their lives to secure 
liberty to other peoples; nor did they bound their 
sympathy to their near neighbours, or to their own 
continent alone, but crossed the seas to redress the 
wrongs of violence in far-off lands, and to see that 
right had might' (xxxiii. 33). It was largely due to 



ix.] THE FIRST WAR WITH MACEDONIA. 107 

Flamininus, the historian tells us, that the boon was so 
complete. He urged upon the government at home, 
and the commissioners who acted with him, to win 
the love of Greece by graceful acts, to silence the voice 
of calumny, and restore absolute freedom by disarming 
Chalcis, Demetrias, and Acrocorinthus, the so-called 
fetters of Greece, which had long held her bound. 

Was the conduct of Rome disinterested? — 
It has been matter of debate in modern times whether 
Roman statesmen merited such praises, or had any 
genuine sympathy for Hellenic independence. It may 
be noticed that the policy pursued by them in this 
war was in keeping with their usual practice when 
no lofty sentiment was aired. It was their first 
care when they attacked an enemy to find allies near 
the seat of war, whose local knowledge and supplies 
they might turn to good account, whom they could 
strengthen when the war was over, and to whose 
guard they could commit the advantages that had been 
won. It was thus that they had used Hiero and 
Massinissa in the wars with Carthage ; it was thus 
that Rhodes and Pergamum were to help them in the 
East. The gains of the late war were great enoutrh. 
Macedonia was no longer to be dreaded ; it might 
seem a needless burden to keep garrisons abroad 
when a fringe of free republics would be a watchful 
check on Philip, while there was too little of real unity 
among them to cause alarm from their ambition. 
Matters were hardly ripe for annexation, and it was 
wise to wait awhile without taking more burdens 
on their shoulders. There was nothing very sinister 
in such a policy; nothing to point to far-reaching 
schemes of conquest : but there was nothing of high- 
minded sentiment, or of genuine sympathy for Hellenic 
freedom. If such there might be here or there among 
the Roman statesmen, it was kept surely for the 
study rather than the council chamber, and was too 
unsubstantial to be weighed in questions of real 
business. 



CHAPTER X. 
Rome's wars in the east and policy in Greece. 

The origin of the war with Syria, B.C. 192. — 

The conflict with Antiochus of Syria can hardly be ex- 
plained as due solely to imperial ambition, or to dreams 
of world-wide conquest. Rome that had withdrawn her 
legions and her garrisons from Greece, had no present 
wish to extend her borders in the East, and had no 
forces near the seat of war. Antiochus, who had seen 
Philip crushed, could realise the power of Rome, 
and had little to gain by a defiance. But each was 
hampered by the claims and obligations of the past. 
Antiochus had fondly hoped to win again all that had 
formed part of the kingdom of his fathers. While 
Philip, his old rival, was fighting for his throne, and 
the child-king of Egypt was powerless to resist, he 
promptly seized the territory which had been matter 
of dispute between them, grasped even at the Greek 
cities on the coast, and defied the naval power of 
Rhodes. He had no mind to embroil himself with 
Rome; but when she used big words about the 
grievances of her allies, and her mission to protect 
the independence of the Greeks, he answered in a 
haughty vein, and denied her right to interfere. The 
^Etolians, furious because their claims at the close of 
the last war had been ignored, urged him to cross 
over into Europe, and malcontents in other states sent 
specious offers. Hannibal, driven to his court from 
Carthage by the jealous hate of Rome, was eager to 
begin the fray, and his genius alone was worth an 
army. Rhodes and Pergamum on their side pushed 



[chap, x.] ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST. 109 

matters to extremes, and besieged the wavering Senate 
with their rumours of menace and aggression. The 
language of diplomacy grew fiercer, as each hoped the 
other might give way, and so at last they drifted into 
war. 

The course of the war. — The Romans made 
ready in good earnest, for when Hannibal was in the 
field against them, it was no time for half-measures. 
So vivid was the memory of the past, that they sent a 
strong army to the South to face the invader when he 
landed, as they thought he surely would, to ravage 
Italy with fire and sword. Antiochus was the first to 
strike a blow. He showed himself in Greece long 
before the Roman army could appear upon the scene, 
but he knew not how to profit by his chances, and he 
let the precious months slip idly by till his scanty 
forces were outnumbered by the Romans, who forced 
the passes of Thermopylae where he tried to make a 
stand, and drove him away in headlong flight. He 
was conquered but not crushed, and hoped to be 
left undisturbed perhaps at home. But Rome was 
resolute to finish what was well begun. Her navy 
was soon upon the scene, combining with the Rho- 
dian to keep the Phoenician fleet in check, to the 
command of which Hannibal, by a strange caprice, 
had been appointed. The conqueror of Zama, the 
great Scipio, had volunteered to serve as legate, if his 
brother were made general-in-chief, and both were soon 
upon their way. The legions tramped steadily along 
month after month round the coast of the yEgean, 
while Antiochus moved aimlessly about in fruitless 
efforts to reduce the strongholds that defied him ; they 
were in Asia ere his plans were ready formed; he 
asked for peace, but could not bring himself to accept 
the hard conditions ; he stood for a time irresolute in 
his intrenchments, and at last staked all on the hazard 
of a single day, when a policy of caution would have 
been his only chance. At Magnesia by Mount Sipylus 
came the crash of battle. The motley armaments of 
Syria, in which a score of nationalities were curiously 



no LIVY. [chap. 

mingled, were no match for the steady infantry of 
Rome ; the phalanx stood its ground awhile, then sunk 
into an unwieldy torpid mass, and the fight became a 
massacre at last. The war was at an end, for Syria 
was crushed. She had to give up all that lay beyond 
the Taurus, and to pay a war-indemnity that was heavy 
even for her wealthy subjects. 

Hannibal is hunted down, B.C. 183. — But great 
as was the eminence at which Rome stood, she could not 
breathe, in peace while Hannibal was living. She had 
been mean enough to listen to the lying tales which 
rancorous partisans had forged against him, and to 
drive him in hurried flight from Carthage. Her envoy 
at the Syrian court seems, though Livy tries to mask 
the sinister design, to have affected friendly confidence 
to stir the king's suspicious fears ; caprice or jealousy 
had neutralised his genius in the late war ; yet she set 
a ban upon his head, and hunted him from one court 
of Asia to another, her foremost statesmen even — to 
the shame of Flamininus be it said — stooping to so 
low a task, till at last he died by his own hand, that 
he might not fall into the clutches of his unrelenting 
enemies. 

The treatment of Philip. — Philip, however sorely 
tempted, had been true to Rome in her late struggle, 
but he met with scant courtesy and grudging acts. 
While Eumenes of Pergamum was loaded with rewards 
for service rendered, Philip was condemned to lose 
what Antiochus and the ^Etolians before had wrested 
from him, and what he had reclaimed with his own 
hand. No wonder if he sullenly retired to brood over 
his wrongs and hope for better days. 

The insolent self-assertion of Roman generals. 
— While the government itself assumed so haughty 
and ungenerous a tone we need not be surprised if its 
generals acted with slight respect for the rights of 
weaker races. The war was scarcely ended when the 
consul, Manlius Vulso, made a plundering raid through 
Western Asia, unknown to the Senate or the people, 
and overran Galatia, presently returning with his 



x.] ROME'S WARS IX THE EAST. in 

booty, like an Arab trader from a slave-hunt. Another 
general, a few years later, M. Popilius Laenas, made 
a still more unprovoked attack on a tribe of the 
Ligurians, claimed a triumph even in defiance of the 
Senate for the slaughter of the helpless mountaineers, 
and persisted in his murderous forays till the tribunes 
threatened to impeach him. 

Their faults are clearly exhibited by Livy. — 
Livy does not palliate their conduct, but he seems to 
have been struck, not so much with their cruelty and 
scorn for weakness, as with their insolent self-assertion 
and the failure of the Senate to control them. He 
clearly pictures to our fancy the arrogance of the great 
ruling families, whose members, in their mad haste to 
sate their greed or their ambition, were deaf to the cry 
of justice and even to the restraints of law. 

He deals too tenderly with Flamininus. — But 
there is reason to believe that Livy did not deal so 
frankly with the character of some men of more emi- 
nence. We have seen how lavish were his praises of 
the unselfish sympathies of Flamininus. Not content 
with that, he colours or suppresses facts elsewhere 
recorded on good evidence, but of a less favourable 
nature. For he stood by, we read, and made no sign, 
though privy to the plot which cut off in Boeotia by 
the assassin's dagger the head of a faction dangerous 
to Rome. He had hurried negotiations on with Philip 
for fear that his successor might gain the credit of a 
triumph. He seems to have urged the young Deme- 
trius to make a party for himself and rely on Roman 
help in his ambitious designs upon his father's throne. 
His conduct of the war with Nabis brought little 
credit to the Roman arms, for he could not, or he would 
not overcome the resistance of a petty tyrant, and 
allowed him to remain, infamous as he was for his 
misdeeds, to be a thorn in the side of the Achaean 
league. At a later sta'ge his vanity was hurt by the 
success of Philopoemen, whom he compelled to stay 
his hand when he had Nabis almost at his mercy. 
He allowed the hostile Messenians to be included in 



1 12 LIVY. [chap. 

the league, but with special encouragement to appeal 
to Rome in all disputes, and thereby to sow dissen- 
sions in their midst. Finally, he condescended to run 
like a bloodhound in the track of Hannibal. When 
we collect these scattered features, for most of which 
there is good evidence, we see a character before us 
that is not very lovely, much as it has been over- 
praised. 

Unprovoked war with Perseus, B.C. 711. — While 
the generals of Rome assumed the right to pillage or to 
massacre the weaker races on the frontier, the govern- 
ment itself resolved on a war of iniquitous aggression. 
Philip of Macedon had passed away, but his last years 
had been clouded by a lurid tragedy of domestic 
horrors. Roman intrigue had pitted brother against 
brother, each of whom charged the other with plotting 
to take his life, if not his father's. Demetrius, the 
younger, was condemned to die as a would-be par- 
ricide and traitor, but his -father soon rued the fatal 
act, and sunk in sorrow to his grave. Perseus, who 
succeeded, might have proved an able ruler in more 
quiet times. He set himself to repair the waste of 
constant wars, studied finance, developed the resources 
of the country, scrupulously observed the peace, and 
only stepped beyond his borders to strengthen himself 
by marriage ties with the ruling families of Bithynia 
and Egypt. But Rome eyed jealously his growing 
power, warned him to beware when he chastised a 
restless and aggressive neighbour, and trumped up wild 
stories of his bribing northern hordes to swoop down 
on Italy like the Gauls of earlier ages. Eumenes of 
Pergamum was an indefatigable spy, construing every 
act of Perseus into a sign of disaffection, protesting 
that his own life was in danger because he served 
Rome faithfully, and that the only wise course was to 
crush their common enemy ere he grew too strong. 
The counsel fell on willing ears; it was decided in the 
Senate to draw the sword again, and the submissive 
people sanctioned the unscrupulous act by a vote of 
the Assembly. Some attempt was made indeed, as 



x.] ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST. n? 

we find in Livy's pages, to justify the war by black- 
ening the character of Perseus, and by lying pretexts 
only meant for the credulous populace of Rome. But 
it needed time to prepare an army for the -field, to 
occupy the forts, and call out the allies in Greece, and 
there was danger lest Perseus, gathering courage from 
despair, might overrun the undefended country. So 
they feigned willingness to treat for peace, lured him 
with false hopes inspired by Marcius Philippus, an old 
connection of the Macedonian line, and held him in 
suspense till they were ready to strike home. The 
faint protest of men of honour in the Senate was over- 
ruled or silenced, if indeed the writer does not here 
exhibit in dramatic form the scruples merely of his 
own historic conscience. 

The war dragged on from want of generalship. — 
But the undertaking needed something more than 
audacity and cunning. The generals, chosen from a 
narrow coterie of ruling families, could show no sign of 
military talent. The army was strong and brave as 
ever, but they knew not how to use it; they had no 
knowledge of the seat of war, or could not suit their 
tactics to the country; they mismanaged the com- 
missariat ; they could not even lead the soldiers in the 
field. So the war dragged on for three campaigns, in 
which scarcely any progress had been made. Mean- 
while there was wide-spread discontent in all the neigh- 
bouring countries. The generals, incapable against the 
enemy, gave the rein to their cruelty and greed in deal- 
ing with the allies and subject peoples. They went back 
to their homes with little glory, but they left behind 
them a track of pillaged cities, and races driven to 
insurrection by despair, and commerce made a prey 
for licensed brigandage. Even Perseus, though never 
sanguine of success, took the offensive ; Rhodes and 
Pergamum, weary of the struggle and their ruined 
trade, began to take high tone and talk of mediation. 
But Rome needed only a competent commander to 
retrieve the losses of the past, and the chance of the 
elections fell at length upon a soldier of austerer type, 



U4 LIVY. [chap. 

iEmilius Paullus, who set himself without delay to 
restore the ancient discipline and organise the means 
of conquest. He had not to wait long for a decisive 
battle. Again, at Pydna, it was proved that on a fair 
field nothing in the whole w r orld could resist the 
Roman machinery of war. The legionaries again 
broke up and slaughtered the unwieldy phalanx ; 
the Macedonian army became a helpless crowd, and 
its monarchy collapsed for ever. The fallen ruler 
turned to fly, but there was no escape for him on 
earth, and he was guarded to grace the triumph of his 
conqueror, hardly saved even at last in pitying scorn 
from the foul air of a Roman dungeon. 

Scandalous stories about Perseus. — But history 
might at least have spared the memory of Perseus 
some of the ungenerous taunts transcribed by Livy. 
He was indeed no hero for a national struggle of 
despair, and had not perhaps his father's brilliant 
talents, but the Romans who had sown the seeds of 
fratricidal strife had little right to point the moral ; 
the fear, perhaps the certainty, of treason may well 
have made him seem irresolute, or retire in what was 
called a groundless panic ; the stories of his avarice or 
mistrust in dealing with the faithless Eumenes, and in 
attempting to conceal his treasures, read like the idle 
inconsistent gossip spread by a credulous and heated 
fancy. 

The ungenerous treatment of Rhodes. — It was 
the mission of Rome, the poet tells us, to beat down 
the proud who ventured to resist (debellare superbos). 
Was she as generous in requiting the services of 
those w r ho helped her ? That question may be an- 
swered best by the experience of Rhodes. That 
island state, well-ordered and prosperous beyond her 
neighbours, foremost among the trading powers of 
the iEgean, had stood forward gallantly to protect the 
freedom of the seas against the encroachments of 
Antiochus and Philip. She had done Rome good 
service in the Syrian war, and loyally borne her share 
in all its dangers, though her recompense was scanty 



X.] ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST. 115 

at the close. She offered a fleet of forty ships to com- 
bine with the Roman navy against Perseus. But as 
time went on, and commerce suffered from the war, 
while Macedonia held its own, and the consul Marcius 
Philippus perfidiously hinted that mediation would be 
welcome, they forgot in their silly vanity the measure 
of their strength, and presumed to send both to Rome 
and to the seat of war to say that they would arbitrate 
between the warring powers, and take part against the 
side which refused to come to terms. The arrogant 
offer was ill-timed, for it was scarcely sent before the 
victory of Pydna left Rome secure in her Imperial 
pride. The frightened envoys tried to disguise or 
palliate their mission. At Rhodes itself the partisans 
who had wagged their tongues at Rome fled away at 
once, but could find no city bold enough to give them 
shelter. There was a talk even in the Senate of de- 
claring instant war, and it needed Cato's eloquence to 
shelve the motion. A few presumptuous words how- 
ever wiped away the memory of faithful service, and 
Rhodes lost the dependencies which had been assigned 
to her a few years before on the mainland; she was 
forced to sue to be accepted as a subject, no longer as 
a sovereign ally, and soon saw her revenue drop off 
and dwindle by the creation of a rival emporium at 
Delos. 

The treatment of Eumenes. — We feel less pity for 
Eumenes of Pergamum. who was now made to feel that 
he was but the creature of Rome's policy, which had 
made his kingdom what it was, and could as easily 
unmake it. It was largely due to him that the war had 
been resolved on, for he had nursed suspicion with his 
lying tales, and worked on their willing minds with eager 
hate. But later on perhaps he wearied of the struggle 
or grew doubtful of his patron's strength, and he too 
began to talk of mediation ; rumours even spread of 
overtures from Perseus, which fell through however 
from mutual mistrust. No sooner was the warfare 
over than he was made to feel that he was only a 
supple instrument no longer needed. He hurried to 



n6 LIVY. [chap. 

Italy to sue for favour, but they would not let him 
enter Rome. At home even his subjects were allowed 
to see that he was in disgrace, and that they might 
appeal to a yet higher court of justice. But there was 
worse yet to follow. They had already in another 
land set brother against brother, and stirred up strife 
and murder in the family of Philip. Now the same 
dark policy was tried again, and Attalus, who had 
been sent to sue for pardon, was tempted to form a 
party for himself and oust his brother from the throne. 
But family affection proved too strong, and the baffled 
plotters in revenge took back the gifts with which they 
had vainly tried to snare him. 

The latter is disguised by Livy. — Livy, it is true, 
whose sense of honour was naturally shocked at such 
designs, speaks of them as the work of mean intriguers, 
and hints that the fancy of Attalus had been fired 
already by ambitious hopes, but Polybius expressly 
says that eminent statesmen formed the plot, and the 
offered bribe of territorial domains was certainly the 
Senate's gift. 

Rome's policy in Greece. — Like Rhodes and 
Pergamum the Achaean league was made to feel, im- 
mediately on the fall of Perseus, that its alliance had 
been only one of the stepping-stones convenient for 
awhile in passing to the conquest of the East, but to 
be now flung contemptuously aside. It may be useful 
to recall the general features of Rome's policy in 
Greece, especially as it is in many points glossed over 
and disguised by Livy, though Polybius wrote fully 
with the genuine regrets of patriotic pride. 

.This was selfish and ungenerous. — It is idle to 
suppose, as we have seen, that the statesmen and diplo- 
matists of Rome, who treated the subject-world a few 
years later with such unmeasured insolence, could have 
harboured a fancy so romantic as the vision of Hellenic 
independence. They were beginning as connoisseurs 
of fine art to admire their paintings and their statues, 
so much indeed that Fulvius Nobilior shortly after- 
wards left not a single work of art in all Ambracia — 



x.] ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST. 117 

considerate it seems in that — as Livy quaintly puts it — 
distorting the phrase of the original — he took nothing 
else away with him (xxxviii. 9). But we may find it 
hard to share the historian's credulous admiration, as 
we note that it was Rome's invariable practice to caress 
and to reward at first the new ally who had done good 
service in a distant war, though each was to be flung 
aside in turn as a dishonoured tool, or reduced to the 
common level of subjection. Assuredly if there ever 
was a transient glow of disinterested feeling, it soon 
faded in the light of common day. Nabis, as we have 
seen, was spared, outrageous as had been his license, 
to be a drag upon the progress of the League. The 
iEtolians, who had called Antiochus across the seas, and 
after his defeat defied the whole power of Rome, were 
menaced indeed and scornfully entreated, and kept in 
suspense for many an anxious month, but mercy at last 
was shewn to them which was alike unusual and unde- 
served, for their jealous rivalry was reckoned on as a 
counterpoise to the Macedonian power. What has been 
said of the Messenians already was true of other members 
of the union ; each fragment of the sovereign state was 
encouraged to negotiate with Rome directly, to carry 
every grievance thither as to a high court of appeal ; 
each faction even could hope to gain a hearing, and 
perhaps powerful support for its intrigues. No words 
can be more emphatic than the language of Polybius 
in that respect, though from Livy we might rather 
gather that the senators grew weary of the quarrels of 
the Greeks, than that they gave a stimulus to them 
by approval. No wonder if the controlling power of 
the League was discredited in the eyes of all the 
federal states, and the links of union were sadly 
loosened. Local jealousies revived ; extravagant pre- 
tensions were put forward based upon historic claims ; 
the statesmen of the League were strong enough to 
deal with the forces of disruption, but their hands 
were tied by the selfish policy of Rome, which sternly 
checked them when they drew the sword, and openly 
professed that she would look on with patience if the 



u8 LIVY. [chap. 

foremost cities of the union drew themselves apart and 
Greece were resolved into its social atoms. Meanwhile 
the intensity of party-spirit, the inveterate curse to the free 
life of those republics, was causing rapidly a widespread 
anarchy and license. The rival partisans of Macedonia 
and Rome in every city were hardly to be kept from 
flying at each other's throats, and many a bloody act 
of repression* and reprisal marked the several stages of 
their bitter feuds. Freedom under such conditions was 
a curse and not a boon, for the primary safeguards of 
good government were wanting. The days perhaps 
had long since passed when Greece could stand alone, 
relying on her own turbulent energies and civic talents. 
But Roman intrigues had introduced new elements of 
dissolution, and thanks to her the problem that was 
hard before was impossible henceforth. Still the states- 
men of the Achaean league were wary and made no 
sign of sympathy with Perseus, offering their con- 
tingent in the war against him. But they could not 
silence the traitors in their midst, who when the war 
was over denounced them as the enemies of Rome, and 
turned the presence of the returning legions to account 
to begin a reign of terror in^ their cities. Even men 
like Aemilius Paullus looked on, while noble patriots 
were murdered, and the remnant who appealed to 
Rome were dragged away to Italy, to spend there long 
years of exile, and study like Polybius the lessons of 
the past. 

Livy's later books lost, and in them accounts 
of ruin of Corinth. — Here then the historian's 
guidance fails us; the later books of Livy are lost 
in which we might have read how a fierce explosion of 
unreasoning passion provoked the pitiless vengeance 
of the Romans, how the fair city of Corinth was utterly 
destroyed, her inhabitants enslaved, and her lands par- 
celled out among the conquerors : and how Greece 
forfeited at last even the semblance, as she had long 
lost the reality, of freedom. 

The destruction of Carthage.— It is a far greater 
loss that we have not his description of the third and 



x.] ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST. 119 

final war with Carthage, which stamped out completely 
Punic influence and culture almost at the same time as 
the rude soldier Mummius was making a wilderness 
where Corinth lately stood. It was a war full of varied 
interest of the highest order, and Livy's powers of style 
would have found ample range in dealing with the 
sudden surprises and vicissitudes of the long siege, 
and with the despairing energy and heroism of the in- 
habitants of the devoted city. It would have been a 
matter of great interest to us to learn to what extent 
Livy, reflecting national prejudice, disguised the cruel 
intolerance of the aggression, together with the perfidy 
and cunning which disgraced the opening chapters of 
the war. 

Revolutionary struggles at Rome. — But Rome 
herself was not long to be spared some at least 
of the miseries which she had brought on the sur- 
rounding nations. The arrogant self-assertion of the 
ruling families had grown to an unexampled height ; 
their merciless greed was turning the gardens of the 
world into a desert, while they were heaping up colossal 
fortunes for their children ; but the population of Italy 
was being ruined by constant war and neglect of 
economic evils ; the sturdy yeomanry was dying out, 
and their place was being taken by slave-labourers in 
the country, and a motley populace in the large towns, 
scrambling for the doles of noble bounty, and claim- 
ing to subsist as pensioners upon a subject-world. 
Soon the Gracchi were to appear upon the scene, 
clamouring for legislation to be carried through and 
for the lower orders, thus striving to break down the 
exclusive power of the senatorian rulers, and opening 
the long period of Revolution, which was to bring un- 
numbered evils upon Italy, and to be closed only by 
the Empire. 

6 



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The "Early Christian Literature Primers n will embody, in a few 
small and inexpensive volumes, me substance of the characteristic 
works of the great Fathers of the Church. The plan recognizes four 
groups of works : 

1. The Apostolic Fathers, and the Apologists, a. d. 95-180. 

2. The Fathers of the Third Century, a. d. 180-325. 

3. The Post-Xicene Greek Fathers, a. d. 325-750. 

4. Tlie Post-Xicene Latin Fathers, a. d. 325-590. 

These groups are to be embraced in four books. In the first book 
are given exact translations of the principal works of the Apostolic 
Fathers and the Apologists, preceded by introductions upon the writ- 
ings of the period, and by sketches of the several authors. Nearly every 
known author of the period is mentioned, and his place pointed out. 
Only genuine works, as translated from the latest critical texts, have 
been admitted, and of these a very large part have been brought in. 



Br Rev. GEORGE A. JACKSON. 

THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS, and the APOLOGISTS. 

A. d. 95-180. 

Contents: Introduction — The Earlier Patristic Writings — The 
Apostolic Fathers— Clement of Rome— Sketch, Epistle to Corinthians, 
and Clementine Literature ; Ignatine— Sketch, and Epistle to Romans, 
Ephesians, and Polycarp ; Polycarp— Sketch, and Epistle to Philip- 
pians ; Barnabas— Sketch, arid Epistle. Associated Authors. Hermas 
—Sketch, and the Shepherd ; Papias— Sketch, and Fragments. 

The Apologists.— Introductory Sketch— Notice, and Epistle to 
Diognetus ; Justin— Sketch. First Apology, and Synopsis of Dialogue 
with Trypho; Author of Muratorian Fragment, and the Fragment; 
Melito— Sketch, and Fragment : Athenagoras— Sketch. Chapters from 
Mission about Christians, and Final Argument on the Resurrection. 
[Now Ready.] 

D. APPLETOX & CO., Publishers, Xew York. 



EARLY CHRISTIAN 

LITERATURE PRIMERS. 

EDITED BY 

Professor GEORGE PARK FISHER, D.D. 



ZY PREPARATION'. 

THE FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 

Contents : Introduction (a. d. 180-325), on the Influence of Origen 
in the East and of Cyprian in the West— Irenaeus— Hippolytus— Clement 
of Alexandria— Origen— Methodius— Tertullian— Cyprian. 



THE POST-NICE NE GREEK FATHERS. 

Contents : Introduction (a. d. 325-750), on the Schools of Alexan- 
dria and Antioch— Eusebius of Caesarea— Athanasius— Basil— Gregory 
of Nyesa— Gregory Nazianzen— Epiphanius— John Chrysostom— Theo- 
dore of Mopsuestia— Theodoret— Cyril of Alexandria— The Historians 
of the Fifth and Sixth Centuries. 



THE POST-NICENE LATIN FATHERS. 

Contents: Introduction (a. d. 325-590), on the Influence of the 
Roman Jurisprudence upon the Latin Church Writers— Lactantius; 
Hilary; Ambrose; Jerome; Augustine; John Cassian; Leo the Great; 
Gregory the Great; the Historians Rufinus, Sulpicius Severus, and 
Cassiodorus. 



D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, New York. 



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APPLETONS' 

SCHOOL READERS, 

Consisting of Five Boohs, 

BY 

WM. T. HARRIS, LL. D., A. J. RICKOFF, A. M., MARK EAILEY, A. M. ; 

Superintendent of Schools, Superintendent of Instruction, Instructor in Elocution, 
St. Louis, Mo. Cleveland, O. Yale College. 



APPLETONS' FIRST READER. ... Child's Quarto, 90 pages. 

APPLETONS' SECOND READER 12nio, 142 « 

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APPLETONS' FOURTH READER 12mo, 248 M 

APPLETONS' FIFTH READER 12mo, 4T1 " 



CHIEF MERITS. 

These Readers, while avoiding extremes and onesided tendencies, 
combine into one harmonious whole the several results desirable to 
be attained in a series of school reading-books. These include good 
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resent vowel sounds, correct spelling, exeicises well arranged for the 
pupil's preparation by himself (so that he shall learn the great lessons 
of sell-help, self-dependence, the habit of application), exercises that 
develop a practical command of correct forms of expression, good 
"literary taste, close critical power of thought, and ability to interpret 
the entire meaning of the language of others. 

THE AUTHORS. 

The hteh rank which the authors have attained in the educational 
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Louis and Cleveland, over which two of them have long presided, the 
subject of rending has received more than usual attention, and with 
results that have established for them a wide reputation for superior 
elocutionary discipline and accomplishments. Feeling the need of a 
series of reading-books harmonizing in all respects with the modes 
of instruction growing out of their long tentative work, they have 
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enumerated will commend them to practical teachers everywhere. 

Of Professor Bailey, Instructor of Elocution in Yale College, it is 
neeoless to speak, for he is known throughout the Union as being 
without a peer in his profession. His methods make natural, not me- 
chanical readers. 

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond St., N. Y. 



P RIMERS 

IN SCIENCE, HISTORY, AND LITERATURE. 

18mo. . . Flexible cloth, 45 cents each. 

I.— Edited by Professors HUXLEY, ROSCOE, and BALFOUR 

STEWART. 

SCIENCE PRIMERS. 

Introductory T. H. Huxley. 

Chemistry H. E. Roscoe. 

Physics Balfoub Stewart. 

Physical Geography A. Geikie 

Geology A. Geikie. 

Physiology M. Foster. 

Astronomy J. N. Lockyer. 

Botany J. D. Hooker. 

Logic W. S. Jeyons. 

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II.— Edited by J. R. GREEN, M. A., Examiner in the School 
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HISTORY PRIMERS. 

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Old. Greek Life J. P. M ahaffy. 

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III.— Edited by J. R. GREEN, M. A. 

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English Grammar R. Morris. 

English Literature Stopford A. Brooke. 

Philology J. Peile. 

Classical Geography M. F. Tozer. 

Shakespeare .E. Dowden. 

Studies in Bryant J. Alden. 

Greek Literature R. C. Jebb. 

English Grammar Exercises R. Morris. 

Homer W. E. Gladstone. 

English Composition J. Nichol. 

(Others in preparation.) 

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By this means the pupil's interest is excited, and the memory is im- 
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servation. The woodcuts which illustrate these primers serve the 
same purpose, embellishing and explaining the text at the same time. 

D. A PPL ETON & CO., Publishers, New York. 



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